Rohrer was born inBuchs, St. Gallen half an hour after his twin sister. He enjoyed a carefree country childhood until the family moved toZürich in 1949. He enrolled in theSwiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in 1951, where he was student ofWolfgang Pauli andPaul Scherrer. His PhD thesis was supervised by P. Grassmann who worked oncryogenic engineering. Rohrer measured the length changes of superconductors at the magnetic-field-induced superconducting transition, a project begun by Jørgen Lykke Olsen. In the course of his research, he found that he had to do most of his research at night after the city was asleep because his measurements were so sensitive to vibration.
His studies were interrupted by his military service in the Swiss mountain infantry. In 1961, he married Rose-Marie Egger. Their honeymoon trip to theUnited States included a stint doing research on thermal conductivity of type-II superconductors and metals with Bernie Serin atRutgers University inNew Jersey.
In 1963, he joined theIBM Research Laboratory inRüschlikon under the direction ofAmbros Speiser. The first couple of years at IBM, he studied Kondo systems with magnetoresistance in pulsed magnetic fields. He then began studying magnetic phase diagrams, which eventually brought him into the field of critical phenomena.
Until 1982 he worked on the scanning tunneling microscope. He was appointedIBM Fellow in 1986, and led the physics department of the research lab from 1986 until 1988. Rohrer was elected as an honourable member of theSwiss Physical Society in 1990 and an honorary academician ofAcademia Sinica in 2008.[9]
^Heinrich Rohrer on Nobelprize.org, accessed 20 April 2020 including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1986Scanning Tunneling Microscopy – From Birth to Adolescence
^Robinson, A. L. (1986). "Electron Microscope Inventors Share Nobel Physics Prize: Ernst Ruska built the first electron microscope in 1931; Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer developed the scanning tunneling microscope 50 years later".Science.234 (4778):821–822.Bibcode:1986Sci...234..821R.doi:10.1126/science.234.4778.821.PMID17758103.
^"The Heinrich Rohrer Medal".Heinrich Rohrer Medal. Japan Society of Vacuum and Surface Science. Retrieved12 February 2020.
^"Heinrich Rohrer Medal".The 9th International Symposium on Surface Science. Japan Society of Vacuum and Surface Science. Retrieved12 February 2020.
^"Leadership And Development Award".Nano Seoul 2020. Archived fromthe original on 24 February 2020. Retrieved24 February 2020.Nano Seoul 2020 appreciates the effort of gathering the professionals by presenting a Heinrich Rohrer Award.
