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Jan H van der Merwe

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Jan van der Merwe (28 February 1922 (Humpata, Angola) – 28 February 2016 (South Africa))[1] was a South African physicist. The Frank-Van der Merwe crystal growth model carries his name and he has been awarded with a large number of South African academic prizes.[2] He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Epitaxy".[1]

Van der Merwe was born to Dorslandtrekkers (Afrikaner farmer-settlers) in Angola, but he and his family moved to Namibia shortly afterwards, in 1928. After a BSc in engineering at the University of Stellenbosch, he continued with a MSc in applied mathematics, which he completed in 1945. Between 1947 and 1949, Van der Merwe did a Phd in University of Bristol.[1] It was in Bristol that he started working intercrystalline boundaries, together with Charles Frank. Eventually they started researching epitaxy, and in 1949 they presented the fruits of their research in a series of scientific papers.[2][3][4] [5]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Prof Jan H van der Merwe, a renowned physicist passed away". South African Institute of Physics. 3 March 2016. Archived from the original on 21 April 2016.
  2. ^ a b Nabarro, F. RN. "Jan van der Merwe and the theory of epitaxy." Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A 33.8 (2002): 2473-2474.
  3. ^ Van der Merwe, J. H. "Misfitting monolayers and oriented overgrowth." Discussions of the Faraday Society 5 (1949): 201-214.
  4. ^ Frank, F. C., and J. H. Van der Merwe. "One-dimensional dislocations. II. Misfitting monolayers and oriented overgrowth." Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. Vol. 198. No. 1053. The Royal Society, 1949.
  5. ^ Frank, F. C., and J. H. Van der Merwe. "One-dimensional dislocations. III. Influence of the second harmonic term in the potential representation, on the properties of the model." Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. Vol. 200. No. 1060. The Royal Society, 1949.


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