Louis Winslow Austin - Professional Life - Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, Charlottenburg, Germany: 1901-1902

Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, Charlottenburg, Germany: 1901-1902

Returning to Germany in 1901, Austin worked at the renowned Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (PTR) now Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Charlottenburg (now a suburb of Berlin). There he studied the properties of gases at high temperatures. Together with colleague Starke, he is credited with the discovery of secondary electron emission in 1902, which they reported in an article in Annalen der Physik. But the discovery had to await almost two decades for commercial applications to develop in the form of the photomultiplier, a key enabler of television technology and today's advances in neutrino detectors. The primary function of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Germany was to establish national metrological standards including measurement and calibration techniques. In the USA that function was charged to the Bureau of Standards and Austin's work at the PTR would have been favourably viewed by his future employer.