History

Plas­ma Re­se­arch with Tra­di­ti­on

For mo­re than 100 ye­ars phy­si­cists ha­ve be­en ex­pe­ri­men­ting with io­ni­zed ga­ses, which they call plas­ma sin­ce the la­te 1920s. Ru­dolf See­li­ger was one of the pioneers when he took over a po­si­ti­on at the Phy­sics In­sti­tu­te of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Greifs­wald and foun­ded an in­ter­na­tio­nal­ly re­co­gni­zed school in this field. Paul Schulz, a re­now­ned phy­si­cist as well, foun­ded the Re­se­arch Cent­re for Gas Di­sch­ar­ge Phy­sics, which was at­ta­ched to the Aca­de­my of Sci­en­ces. His re­se­arch al­lo­wed, among others, the con­struc­tion of xe­non high pres­su­re lamps, which are still used to­day for spe­ci­fic pur­po­ses. In 1950 the re­se­arch cent­re re­cei­ved the sta­tus of a re­gu­lar In­sti­tu­te for Gas Di­sch­ar­ge Phy­sics, which al­lo­ca­ted to the Cen­tral In­sti­tu­te for Elec­tron Phy­sics (ZIE) of the Aca­de­my of Sci­en­ces of GDR in 1969.

Af­ter the Ger­man re­uni­fi­ca­ti­on ZIE, li­ke all other in­sti­tu­tes of the Aca­de­my of Sci­en­ces in East Ger­ma­ny, was dis­sol­ved ac­cor­ding to the Ger­man Uni­fi­ca­ti­on Trea­ty on De­cem­ber 31, 1991. In ac­cor­dance with the eva­lua­ti­on of the re­se­arch ac­tivi­ties the Sci­en­ti­fic Coun­cil of the Fe­deral Re­pu­blic of Ger­ma­ny re­com­men­ded the foun­da­ti­on of a new in­sti­tu­te, which was car­ri­ed out on Ja­nu­a­ry 1, 1992. From the be­gin­ning, the new in­sti­tu­ti­on, the In­sti­tu­te for Low Tem­pe­ra­tu­re Plas­ma Phy­sics (INP Greifs­wald) has be­en a mem­ber of the Leib­niz As­so­cia­ti­on. In or­der to ho­nor Gott­fried Wil­helm Leib­niz in its na­me and app­re­cia­te his aspi­ra­ti­on – "theo­ria cum pra­xi" – as part of the stra­te­gy of the in­sti­tu­te, INP was re­na­med Leib­niz In­sti­tu­te for Plas­ma Sci­ence and Tech­no­lo­gy on the oc­ca­si­on of its 15^th an­ni­vers­a­ry.

On September 29, 2022, the INP celebrated its 30th anniversary and renewed its claim to the close interweaving of basic research and applied science.