Fritz E. Borgnis (December 24, 1906 – August 27, 1982) was a German applied physicist and electrical engineer, known for his contributions to microwave physics, guided waves and ultrasonic measurements for medical diagnostics.
Background Borgnis was born on December 24, 1906, in Mannheim, Germany. After completing high school in Hamburg, he matriculated at the Technische Hochschule München where he received a diploma in electrical engineering in 1929. Retrieved March 30, 2019. He continued at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and obtained an engineering degree ( Dr. Ing.) in the field of current flow by convection and diffusion.Fritz Borgnis 1906-1982. ETHZ Digital Library. Retrieved March 30, 2019. He continued his academic career at the University of Graz followed by two years at the ETH Zurich from 1948 until 1950. During the next seven years, he worked and taught at various universities in the USA. From 1957 until 1960, Borgnis acted as director of research at the Allgemeine Deutsche Philips Industrie in Hamburg. 1960 Borgnis accepted a faculty position at the ETH in Zurich. He became full professor for high-frequency electronics.
From the early 1960s, Borgnis' projects at ETH dealt with measurements of flow in liquids using ultrasound. Several publications describe the progress achieved as pioneers in this field.Peter J. Wild: LCD Evolution - Swiss Contributions. Engineering and Technology History Wiki. Retrieved April 1, 2019 Initial experiments were performed in blood vessels of dogs.K. G. Plass: A new ultrasonic flowmeter for intravascular application. IEEE Trans. on Bio-Medical Engineering, Vol. BME-11, nr. 4, October 1964, pp. 154-156. Later, experiments to measure the flow in human blood vessels were conducted.P. Frutiger, F. Borgnis: An improved ultrasonic flowmeter. Cardiologia 54 (1969), pp. 193-204A. Bolliger, F. Borgnis: Ein verbesserter Ultraschall-Strömungsmesser für intravasale Messungen. Messmethoden in der Venenchirurgie. In: Aktuelle Probleme der Angiologie, Bd. 15, Ed. May, R., publisher S. Karger, Basel (1972)Fritz E. Borgnis: A novel design for intravascular measurement of blood velocity in arteries and veins based on the transit-time principle. In: Cardiovascular applications of ultrasound. Editor R. S. Reneman, North Holland Publishing Company (1974), pp. 173-182
Borgnis retired in 1977 after working and teaching at the ETH during 17 years.
Books Electromagnetic Waveguides and Resonators, in Handbuch der Physik, vol. XVI, (Springer-Verlag, 1958). With Charles H. Papas Randwertprobleme der Mikrowellenphysik (Springer-Verlag, 1955). With Charles H. Papas
Awards Fellow of the American Physical Society Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America
References