This year’s Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics will be awarded to Sir John Pendry, one of the world’s leading condensed matter theorists. His revolutionary work on metamaterials has opened the doors to a wide range of new possibilities in applied physics.
The award, accompanied by US$ 5,000, will be presented on 18 October 2013 at the Magnus Haus of the German Physical Society in Berlin, Germany.
Sir John Pendry is a pioneer in the fast-growing field of optical metamaterial science. His work has created materials with electromagnetic properties that provide greater control of light itself. He introduced a method of creating a lens whose focus is theoretically perfect. This “perfect lens,” whose resolution is unlimited by wavelength, utilizes negative refraction to allow limitless data storage.
Pendry’s research has also led to the development of the first working prototype cloaking device, also known as the “invisibility cloak.” This device renders an object invisible to radar waves. Instead of striking and reflecting off the object, the waves flow smoothly around it as if it were not there, giving the illusion of transparency. Pendry’s new concepts have caught the imagination of the general public, generating a great deal of interest and publicity for science in general.
Sir John Pendry received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1969 and worked at Bell Laboratories from 1972-1973. He has held his professorship in the Blackett Laboratory (Imperial College, London) since 1981. In 1998 he became the head of the Physics Department and is currently the Chair in Theoretical Solid State Physics. He was knighted (Knight Bachelor) in 2004 by Queen Elizabeth II and was named a Fellow of the Optical Society of America in 2005.
The Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics recognizes researchers who have made an outstanding and innovative contribution to the field of applied physics. It has been awarded annually since 1998 by the editors-in-chief of the Springer journals Applied Physics A – Materials Science & Processing and Applied Physics B – Lasers and Optics.
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