In Memoriam: Markus Büttiker

ICTP was saddened to learn about the passing away of theoretical physicist Markus Büttiker. Büttiker made pioneering contributions to mesoscopic physics and semiconductor physics. He, along with Rolf Landauer, proposed the Landauer-Büttiker formalism that explains the relation between the wave functions of a noninteracting quantum system and its conducting properties.

Büttiker, who has collaborated with ICTP's Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics section, visited ICTP in 2008 as director of a workshop on "Electron Transport in Small Systems" and has lectured at various condensed matter activities.

Büttiker started his research career in 1978 at the University of Basel where he received his doctorate. He went on to work at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and then took up professorship at the University of Geneva in 1994. He was appointed as Director of the department of theoretical physics there and he held the position till his death on 4 October 2013. Büttiker has been the recipient of two Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards from IBM and was elected as fellow to the American Physical Society in 1990.