death_date death_place birth_place citizenship nationality field work_institutions birth_date known_for spouse image article_title name alma_mater
22 april 1953 poznań , poland exin , germany polish and german polish chemistry , metallurgy warsaw university of technology 23 october 1885 czochralski process marguerite haase jan-czochralski . jpg jan czochralski
 jan czochralski charlottenburg polytechnic in berlin
jan czochralski

jan czochralski -lrb- pronounced as ; 23 october 1885 -- 22 april 1953 -rrb- was a polish chemist who invented the czochralski process , which is used for growing single crystals and in the production of semiconductor wafers .
he is the most cited polish scholar .
czochralski was born in what was then exin in the prussia province of pomerania , german empire ; now kcynia , poland .
around 1900 he moved to berlin , where he worked at a pharmacy .
he was educated at charlottenburg polytechnic in berlin , where he specialized in metal chemistry .
czochralski began working as an engineer for allgemeine elektrizitäts gesellschaft -lrb- aeg -rrb- in 1907 .
he discovered the czochralski method in 1916 , when he accidentally dipped his pen into a crucible of molten tin rather than his inkwell .
he immediately pulled his pen out to discover that a thin thread of solidified metal was hanging from the nib .
the nib was replaced by a capillary , and czochralski verified that the crystallized metal was a single crystal .
czochralski 's experiments produced single crystals a millimeter in diameter and up to 150 centimeters long .
he published a paper on his discovery in 1918 in the zeitschrift für physikalische chemie , a german chemistry journal , under the title `` ein neues verfahren zur messung der kristallisationsgeschwindigkeit der metalle '' new method for the measurement of the crystallization rate of metals , since the method was at that time used for measuring the crystallization rate of metals such as tin , zinc and lead .
in 1950 , americans gordon k. teal and j.b. little from bell labs would use the method to grow single germanium crystals , leading to its use in semiconductor production .
in 1917 , czochralski organized the research laboratory `` metallbank und metallurgische gesellschaft '' , which he directed until 1928 .
in 1919 he was one of the founding members of the german society for metals science -lrb- deutsche gesellschaft für metallkunde -rrb- , of which he was president until 1925 .
in 1928 , at the request of the president of poland , ignacy mościcki , he moved to poland and became the professor of metallurgy and metal research at the chemistry department of the warsaw university of technology .
after the war , he was stripped of his professorship by the communist regime due to his involvement with germany during the war , although he was later cleared of any wrongdoing by a polish court .
he returned to his native town of kcynia , where he ran a small cosmetics and household chemicals firm until his death in 1953 .
