Professor Klapwijk receives prestigious prize for superconductivity experiments
15 June 2012 by M&C
Teun Klapwijk, professor at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology, will receive the 2012 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes prize for superconductivity experiments. The prize, regarded as one of the most prestigious in the field, is awarded every three years for outstanding experiments that illuminate the nature of superconductivity.
The Heike Kamerlingh Onnes prize is shared with Øystein Fisher (University of Geneva) and Herbert Mook (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). It will be presented to Klapwijk at the 2012 International Conference on Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity (July 29th-August 3rd) in Washington DC.
Klapwijk was cited for ‘seminal experiments on the superconducting properties of superconductor-ferromagnet and superconductor-normal metal nanostructures.’ Klapwijk has been active in the field of superconductivity for many years. His most recent discovery was the penetration of superconductivity into a ferromagnet.
Prior to that, he worked on superconductor-semiconductor systems as well as on an important theoretical model, the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk-theory (BTK-theory). Thanks to this model, scientists can identify the superconducting properties of a new material through experiments in a relatively easy and quick manner. Klapwijk is also known for his contributions to the Herschel Space Telescope and ALMA, where the power of superconductivity is used for experimental astronomy.
The prize was established in 1999 and is named after the Dutch scientist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926), winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics, for the discovery of superconductivity and related low-temperature research. Since the discovery of superconductivity, the phenomenon has been used widely in scientific research, including astronomy, quantum mechanical research and electronics. But it is also used in ‘every day’ applications, most notably in MRI-scanners.
