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22 October 2025
Obituary—Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Helfrich (1932–2025)

With profound sorrow, we regret to inform you about the passing of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Helfrich. In the 1970s, he invented the first twisted-nematic liquid-crystal electro-optical display in Hoffmann-LaRoche Laboratories, which greatly advanced the development of the world’s liquid crystal display industry. We are grateful for the legacy his research has left in the academic world.

Wolfgang Helfrich was born on 26 March 1932 in München. He studied physics at the Universities of Göttingen, München, and Tübingen from 1951 to 1958, and obtained his doctoral degree at the Technical University of München in 1961. After research stays in München, at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, and the RCA Laboratories at Princeton, Wolfgang Helfrich habilitated in 1967 in München on space-charge-limited and volume-controlled currents in organic crystals.

In 1973, Wolfgang Helfrich published the first complete description of the bending energy of membranes. In 1978, he set up the first theory of the steric repulsion of membranes caused by shape fluctuations. In the 1970s and following decades, Wolfgang Helfrich made numerous theoretical and experimental contributions to membrane physics, in particular on vesicle shapes, membrane shape fluctuations, and the effect of electric fields on vesicles.

His work was recognized with a significant number of honors and awards, including, but not limited to the following:

  • 1976 EPS Europhysics Prize;
  • 1993 Wolfgang Ostwald Prize;
  • 2008 IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal;
  • 2012 Sackler Prize;
  • 2012 Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering.

Throughout his extraordinary life, in addition to his groundbreaking scientific research, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the dissemination of knowledge and the cultivation of talent. It is our hope that this obituary serves as a poignant reflection of the sorrow felt by his students and all colleagues within the scientific research community for his departed soul. We also want to express our heartfelt condolences to his wife and wish her peace and solace in this time of sorrow.  

Zhongcan Ouyang and Membranes Editorial Office 

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