German physicist and winner, with Robert Hofstadter of the United States, of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1961 for his discovery of the Mössbauer effect.
Mössbauer discovered the effect in 1957, one year before he received his doctorate from the Technical Academy of Munich. Under normal conditions, atomic nuclei recoil when they emit gamma rays, and the wavelength of the emission varies with the amount of recoil. Mössbauer found that at a low temperature, a nucleus can be embedded in a crystal lattice that absorbs its recoil. The discovery of the Mössbauer effect made it possible to produce gamma rays at specific wavelengths, and this proved a useful tool because of the highly precise measurements it allowed. The sharply defined gamma rays of the Mössbauer effect have been used to verify Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and to measure the magnetic fields of atomic nuclei.
Mössbauer became professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1961. Three years later he returned to Munich to become professor of physics at the Technical Academy.
From:
http://almaz.com/nobel/physics/1961b.html
1961 Nobel Laureate in Physics
Background
Born: 1929
Residence: Germany
Affiliations:
Technische Hochschule, Munich
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.
From:
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Moessbauer.html
Mössbauer, Rudolf (1929-)
German physicist who was a graduate student at Caltech and investigated emissions of gamma rays from nuclear transitions. A recoil momentum corresponding to the that of the emitted gamma ray must be imparted to the atom. For atoms in a crystal lattice, however, the entire lattice absorbs the momentum and emits a hypothetical particle known as a phonon. If no phonon is emitted, however, the energy of the gamma ray has a very sharp, well defined value. This is the Mössbauer Effect. Only an identical atom can reabsorb the gamma ray in a phonon -less absorption. Therefore, if the frequency is changed slightly, the gamma ray cannot be absorbed.
This property was used by Pound and Rebka in their 1960 classic general relativity experiment. Mössbauer was awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 1961.
