Herbert Ipser on his 65th Birthday

Abstract

Herbert Ipser was born on September 22, 1947, in Vienna. After graduation from High School in 1966 he decided to study Chemistry at the University of Vienna. He started his thesis on the phase relationships and thermodynamics of the iron–tellurium alloy system under the guidance of K.L. Komarek and, in 1974, he received his PhD from the University of Vienna. In the same year, he was awarded a Fulbright grant which enabled him to spend the next two years as a post doctorate research fellow at the Department of Materials at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, USA, in the group of Austin Chang. During his leave from Vienna, he worked on a book entitled ‘‘Phase Diagrams and Thermodynamic Properties of Ternary Copper–Metal Systems’’ which, since then, has become a valuable resource for materials scientists. After his two-year stay in Milwaukee, Herbert Ipser returned to his home University in Vienna to resume his position as University Assistant in the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry. There he performed research in different fields of chemistry focussed on phase diagrams and on the thermodynamics of binary and multicomponent systems with emphasis on the close correlation with the underlying defect chemistry. In 1986 he successfully presented his habilitation treatise ‘‘Thermodynamics of NiAs-Phases’’. As Dozent for Inorganic Chemistry he steadily widened the range of his research activities into the field of materials science. During this period, a large number of scientific publications of a remarkable experimental standard appeared. Because of the widely acknowledged reliability of his experimental skills many of his findings found their way into common reference books. Finally, Herbert Ipser was designated Full Professor for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Vienna in 1998. In 2002 Herbert Ipser initiated the European project COST 531 on ‘‘Lead-Free Solder Materials’’. Under his accurate and strict guidance the project developed into one of the most successful actions, with the active participation of institutions from 21 different countries. As the Austrian representative of the succeeding project MP 0602 on ‘‘High Temperature Soft Solders’’ started in 2007, he was one of the most active supporters of the program. Besides the initiation and the management of such projects, Herbert Ipser, with the help of his group, organized several scientific conferences in Vienna. Conferences on High Temperature Materials Chemistry (HTMC 94 and 06) and the Thermodynamics of Alloys (TOFA 88 and 04) held in Vienna were extremely successful in bringing people together working in the same fields. It was always his particular concern to keep the conference fee as low as possible and to support scientists who had problems obtaining travel grants to attend the conferences. In the years which followed, on H. Flandorfer A. Mikula K. W. Richter (&) P. Terzieff Department of Inorganic Chemistry/Materials Chemistry, University of Vienna, Wahringer Strasse 42, 1090 Vienna, Austria e-mail: klaus.richter@univie.ac.at