Sigurd Hofmann


Sigurd Hofmann is a physicist known for his work on superheavy elements.

Biography

Hofmann discovered his love for physics at the Max Planck High School in Groß-Umstadt, Germany, where he graduated in 1963. He studied physics at the Technical University in Darmstadt. From 1974 to 1989 he was responsible for the detection and identification of nuclei produced in heavy ion reactions at the velocity separator SHIP at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research. He was working in the Department Nuclear Chemistry II headed by Peter Armbruster. Since 1989 he is leading, after Gottfried Münzenberg, the experiments for the synthesis of new elements. Since 1998 he is Honorary Professor at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main.
He was the leading scientist with the discovery experiments of the chemical elements darmstadtium, roentgenium and copernicium. He made substantial contributions to the discovery experiments of the elements bohrium, hassium and meitnerium. He participated in the discovery of the element flerovium at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Dubna, Russia, and his research group confirmed data measured on the synthesis of the elements flerovium and livermorium at FLNR. He identified many new isotopes located at the proton drip-line, among those the isotope 151Lu, the first case of radioactive emission of protons from the ground-state of a nucleus. His speciality is nuclear spectroscopy and heavy ion reactions.

Awards