Schön scandal

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The Schön scandal concerns German

Otto-Klung-Weberbank Prize for Physics and the Braunschweig Prize in 2001, as well as the Outstanding Young Investigator Award of the Materials Research Society in 2002, all of which were later rescinded.[2]

The scandal provoked discussion in the scientific community about the degree of responsibility of coauthors and reviewers of

scientific articles. The debate centered on whether peer review
, traditionally designed to find errors and determine relevance and originality of articles, should also be required to detect deliberate fraud.

Rise to prominence

Schön's topic of research was condensed matter physics and nanotechnology.[3] He received his PhD from the University of Konstanz in 1997. In late 1997, he was hired by Bell Labs, where he worked on electronics in which conventional semiconducting elements (such as silicon) were replaced by crystalline organic (meaning carbon-based) materials. Schön, however, claimed spectacular ability in changing the conductivity of the organic materials, far beyond anything achieved thus far. His measurements in most cases confirmed various theoretical predictions, notably that the organic materials could be made to display superconductivity or be used in lasers. The findings were published in prominent scientific publications, including the journals Science and Nature, and gained worldwide attention. However, no research group anywhere in the world succeeded in reproducing the results claimed by Schön.[4]

In 2001, he was listed as an author on an average of one newly published research paper every eight days.

electric circuit that, when acted on by an electric current, behaved as a transistor. The implications of his work were significant. It would have been the beginning of a move away from silicon-based electronics and toward organic electronics. It would have allowed transistors to continue shrinking past the point at which silicon breaks down, and therefore continue Moore's law
for much longer than was then predicted. It also would have drastically reduced the cost of electronics.

A key element in Schön's work claimed successful observation of various physical phenomena in organic materials was dependent on the transistor setup. Specifically, Schön claimed to use a thin layer of aluminium oxide which he incorporated into his transistors using lab facilities at the University of Konstanz. However, while the equipment and materials used were common in laboratories all over the world, none succeeded in preparing aluminium oxide layers of similar quality to the ones claimed by Schön.[4]

Allegations and investigation

Soon after Schön published his work on single-molecule semiconductors, others in the physics community alleged that his data contained anomalies.

Lucent Technologies (which ran Bell Labs) to start a formal investigation.[6]

In May 2002, Bell Labs set up a committee to investigate, with Malcolm Beasley from Stanford University as chair.[7] The committee obtained information from all of Schön's coauthors and interviewed the three principal ones (Zhenan Bao, Bertram Batlogg and Christian Kloc).[8] It examined electronic drafts of the disputed articles, which included processed numeric data. The committee requested copies of the raw data, but found that Schön had kept no laboratory notebooks. His raw data files had been erased from his computer. According to Schön, the files were erased because his computer had limited hard drive space. In addition, all of his experimental samples had been discarded or damaged beyond repair.[3][7]

On September 25, 2002, the committee publicly released its report.[7] The report contained details of 24 allegations of misconduct on Schön's part. They found evidence of scientific misconduct in at least 16 of them while the remaining 8 were unrelated to publications or troubling but lacked compelling evidence of misconduct. They found that whole data sets had been reused in a number of different experiments. They also found that some of his graphs, which purportedly had been plotted from experimental data, had instead been produced using mathematical functions.[7]

The report found that all of the misdeeds had been performed by Schön alone. All of the coauthors (including Bertram Batlogg, who was the head of the team) were exonerated of scientific misconduct. This sparked widespread debate[9] in the scientific community on how the blame for misconduct should be distributed among co-authors, particularly when they share a significant part of the credit.[7]

Aftermath and sanctions

Schön acknowledged that the data were incorrect in many of these articles.[7] He claimed that the substitutions could have occurred by honest mistake. He omitted some data and stated that he did so to show more convincing evidence for behavior that he observed.

Researchers at Delft University of Technology and the Thomas J. Watson Research Center have since performed experiments similar to Schön's, without achieving similar results.[3] Even before the allegations had become public, several research groups had tried to reproduce most of his spectacular results in the field of the physics of organic molecular materials without success.[6][10]

In June 2004 the University of Konstanz issued a press release stating that Schön's doctoral degree had been revoked due to "dishonourable conduct". Department of Physics spokesman Wolfgang Dieterich called the affair the "biggest fraud in physics in the last 50 years" and said that the "credibility of science had been brought into disrepute".

Federal Constitutional Court confirmed it in September 2014.[16]

In October 2004, the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, the German Research Foundation) Joint Committee announced sanctions against him. The former DFG post-doctorate fellow was deprived of his active right to vote in DFG elections or serve on DFG committees for an eight-year period. During that period, Schön was also unable to serve as a peer reviewer or apply for DFG funds.[17]

Schön returned to Germany and took a job at an engineering firm.[10]

Withdrawn journal articles

On October 31, 2002, Science withdrew eight articles written by Schön:[18]

On December 20, 2002, Physical Review withdrew six articles written by Schön:[19][20]

On February 24, 2003, Applied Physics Letters withdrew four articles written by Schön:[21][22][23][24]

On March 5, 2003, Nature withdrew seven articles written by Schön:[25]

On March 20, 2003, Advanced Materials withdrew two articles written by Schön:[26]

On May 2, 2003, Science withdrew another article written by Schön:[27]

  • J. H. Schön; M. Dorget; F. C. Beuran; X. Z. Xu; E. Arushanov; M. Laguës; C. Deville Cavellin (2001). "Field-Induced Superconductivity in a Spin-Ladder Cuprate". Science. 293 (5539): 2430–2.
    S2CID 31378437
    .     (Retracted)

Further questionable journal articles

The retraction notices from February 24, 2003, in Applied Physics Letters relayed concerns about seven articles written by Schön and published in the Applied Physics Letters:[21][22][23][24]

The retraction notice from March 20, 2003, in Advanced Materials mentions concerns about another article written by Schön:[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Scandal Rocks Scientific Community". Deutsche Welle. 30 September 2002.
  2. ISBN 978-3319295282
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-312-37480-8
    .
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-230-62384-2
    .
  5. ^ "Lessons from Schon -- the worst physics fraudster?". phys.org. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  6. ^ a b Cassuto, Leonard (16 September 2002). "Big trouble in the world of "Big Physics"". Salon.com. Archived from the original on 25 September 2008.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Beasley, Malcolm R.; Datta, Supriyo; Kogelnik, Herwig; Kroemer, Herbert; Monroe, Don (September 2002). "Report of the Investigation Committee on the possibility of Scientific Misconduct in the work of Hendrik Schon and Coauthors" (PDF). Bell Labs.
  8. ^ "Faculty Staff: Professor Christian Kloc". mse.ntu.edu.sg. Singapore: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University. Archived from the original on May 24, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  9. doi:10.1038/nphys1316
    .
  10. ^
    ISBN 978-0-230-22467-4
    .
  11. ^ "Universität Konstanz entzieht Jan Hendrik Schön den Doktortitel" (Press release) (in German). University of Konstanz. 2004.
  12. ^ van Bebber, Frank (2009-10-28). "Uni Konstanz bleibt bei Aberkennung des Doktortitels". Der Spiegel (in German).
  13. ^ "Einseitig gewichtet: Die Universität Konstanz geht in Sachen Schön in Berufung" [Biased: The University of Konstanz is Appealing the Issues of Schön] (Press release). University of Konstanz. November 30, 2010.
  14. ^ Eberhardt, Johanna (14 September 2011). "Umstrittener Physiker ist Doktortitel los" [Controversial Physicist Loses Doctorate]. Stuttgarter Zeitung (in German). Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  15. Bundesverwaltungsgericht
    (in German). 31 July 2013. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  16. ^ Abbott, Alison (October 1, 2014). "Schön loses last appeal against PhD revocation". Newsblog at Nature.com. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  17. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
    . 2004.
  18. S2CID 220086928.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  19. ^ Schön, J. H.; Kloc, Ch.; Batlogg, B. (15 December 2002). "Errata".
    doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.66.249903
    .
  20. ^ Schön, Jan Hendrik; Kloc, Christian; Batlogg, Bertram (31 December 2002). "Errata".
    PMID 12557900
    .
  21. ^
    doi:10.1063/1.1553995
    .
  22. ^
    doi:10.1063/1.1556138
    .
  23. ^
    doi:10.1063/1.1556139
    .
  24. ^ a b J. H. Schön; Ch. Kloc; B. Batlogg (2003). "Retraction: "Perylene: A promising organic field-effect transistor material" [Appl. Phys. Lett. 77, 3776 (2000)]".
    doi:10.1063/1.1556140
    .
  25. ^ Schön, J. H.; Dorget, M.; Beuran, F. C.; Zu, X. Z.; Arushanov, E.; Cavellin, C. Deville; Laguës, M. (2003). "Letters to Nature".
    PMID 12621438
    .
  26. ^
    doi:10.1002/adma.200390130
    .
  27. PMID 12730577
    .

Further reading

External links
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