Throughout his career, Haller earned respect and affection from a wide network of friends, colleagues and collaborators across the globe including the U.S., Asia, and Europe. His work was rewarded with numerous honors, including the 1999 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials from the American Physical Society, the 2005 David Turnbull Lectureship from the Materials Research Society, the 2010 FMD John Bardeen Award of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, and the 2010 election to the National Academy of Engineering for “improvements in semiconductor performance through contributions to the synthesis of ultrapure and doped crystals.”

Haller’s research had extraordinary impact on the doping, alloying, purification, characterization and understanding of semiconductors, as well as their applications. Indeed, Haller’s ultrapure germanium is key to one of the most important devices in the Spitzer telescope: the Multiband Imaging Photometer. This infrared telescope was launched into space in 2003 and is still currently used to study the formation of planets near distant stars. Haller authored or coauthored over 1,000 publications during his career. He provided significant leadership for the semiconductor research community and its international meetings. He also served on the editorial advisory boards of major journals and on numerous scientific advisory boards and panels. Haller was a central figure in establishing semiconductor materials as an important area of research for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In 1984, Haller founded the Berkeley Lab’s Electronic Materials Program (EMAT), a DOE-funded program that continues to this day.