 out a series of delicate calorimetric measurements on the energy stored in graphite as a result of the disruption of the lattice that occurs when a specimen is exposed to cyclotron radiation. He also, in cooperation with Edward Creutz, carried out experiments on the production of bubbles in water exposed to ionizing radiation when the ambient pressure is decreased rapidly. His close colleagues dubbed him "Bubbles Maurer" as a result of this research, which was actually a forerunner of the invention of the well known bubble chamber used in high energy physics.
On returning to Pittsburgh at the end of the war, he soon attracted a steady stream of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, including a number from abroad. He retained close links with many of them, most of whom continued to carry out research in areas related in one way or another to that undertaken in his laboratory. One consequence of the association with foreign students and fellows was a series of invitations over many years to deliver lectures or serve on advisory committees in Europe, Asia and Latin America as well as the United States. He and his wife became well traveled.
In 1948, soon after the Office of Naval Research was well established, he took a brief leave to serve as head of its physics division, working in close cooperation with the leadership and staff. It was in his period that he and Lawson M. McKenzie created the Solid State Advisory committee for Solid State Physics. It eventually became an interagency advisory organization and is now attached to the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1949, Maurer was offered a position in the physics department of the University of Illinois as a result of a decision made jointly by the head of the department, F. Wheeler Loomis and the dean of graduate school, Louis N. Ridenour, to expand in solid state physics as well as in nuclear and high energy physics. Both physicists had served in the Radiation Laboratory at MIT during the war when much attention had been given to the improvement of silicon diodes; both realized that the recent invention of the transistor would open opportunities for those trained in solid state physics. The new appointment permitted considerable expansion of facilities as well as the addition of a number of young faculty members. Research was extended to the range of liquid helium with considerable effectiveness, not least in the study of color centers in the alkali halides. Much of the new work was carried out by talented and highly motivated members of the younger staff, but along lines Maurer had explored. Beyond this, Maurer soon became a stalwart member of the physics faculty, serving broadly in the affairs of the department.
In the 1950s, and encouraged by the advice of John von Neumann who had become one of the five members of the Atomic Energy Commission, the federal agencies decided to fund a number of interdisciplinary materials research laboratories at universities. The University of Illinois was the fortunate recipient of one, funded through cooperation of the Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission, guided in turn by Charles Yost and Donald K. Stevens. By mutual consent of those from the various departments of the university who were to be involved in the laboratory, Maurer was chosen to lead the interdisciplinary advisory group in planning a new building and associated facilities on the campus. It was then natural that he be selected as its director when the laboratory opened in 1963. He occupied that position for the next fifteen years. Soon after retirement in 1981 he and Dorothy Maurer moved to a new home in what were then the suburbs of Santa Fe.
Although Maurer's approach to an experimental problems tended to follow direct, traditional lines, as was the case for example in studying the diffusion of a radioactive isotope, his work was distinguished by the use of the most advanced equipment available, accompanied by great care and neatness. The results he obtained were inevitably convincing as a result of the thoroughness with which they had been c