[Neutron] NSSA announces the 2010 NSSA Prize Winners

[Thomas Proffen]

The Neutron Scattering Society of America is pleased to announce the 2010
recipients of its 3 major prizes.

 

Dr. Herbert A. Mook Jr.

is the recipient of the

2010 Clifford G. Shull Prize

of the Neutron Scattering Society of America with the citation:

"For outstanding contributions to the study of magnetism, superconductivity,
and

quantum phenomena in matter with neutrons"

 

Dr. Mook has worked at the forefront of neutron scattering and condensed
matter physics throughout his entire career. His research spans a number of
diverse topics including magnetic excitations in transition metals and mixed
valence materials to momentum distributions of the quantum fluids 4He and
3He. His most important and influential research, however, is related to the
interaction of magnetism and superconductivity. In particular, Dr. Mook and
collaborators used neutrons to investigate the nature of the magnetic to
superconducting transition in the rareearth rhodium borides in the 1980's.
With the discovery of high temperature superconductivity in the cuprates,
Dr. Mook championed a series of exceptional experiments to elucidate the
nature of the magnetic structure and fluctuations in "214" and "Y123" high
TC materials. In addition to these investigations, he also led studies of
the vortex lattice in superconducting materials by small angle scattering.
As part of this research, Dr. Mook trained a large cohort students and post
docs, many of whom have gone on to pursue important careers in neutron

science of their own.

 

Dr. Mook received his PhD in 1965 from Harvard University, though notably,
he worked with Prof. Cliff Shull who was then at MIT. He immediately moved
to Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he has remained for the rest of his
career. He held a series of leadership positions at ORNL including Head of
the Neutron Scattering Section from 1995- 2000, Scientific Director of the
Spallation Neutron Source from 1995-2000, Director of the Center for Neutron
Science from 2000-2004 and Scientific Director of the Center for Neutron
Scattering from 2004-2005. Currently Dr. Mook is a Senior Corporate Fellow
of the Laboratory and a senior Advisor to the Neutron Sciences Directorate.
Throughout the years, he has served on numerous advisory committees designed
to develop, promote and enhance neutron scattering facilities in the U.S. He
has received notable awards for science, including the DOE Award for
Outstanding Scientific Accomplishments in Solid State Physics in 1982 and
1998, and for instrumentation development. In addition he holds several
patents for neutron instrumentation  involving, for example, better methods
of accomplishing neutron polarization. The depth of his contribution to
science is evident in his citation recorded: His 200 papers have been cited
over 9000 times with 52 papers each cited 52 times or more.

 

 

Prof. Collin Broholm

Johns Hopkins University

is the recipient of the

2010 Sustained Research Prize

of the Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA) with the citation:

"For outstanding neutron scattering studies of correlated electron physics
in

magnets, metals and superconductors, and for science-driven development of

neutron scattering techniques"

 

Prof. Broholm's experiments have been central to the modern agenda of solids
with strongly interacting internal degrees of freedom. He has shown great
insight in choosing model systems of high intrinsic interest and broad
impact for both experiment and theory. An example is his work on the
metal-insulator transition in the correlated system V2O3. A mean-field phase
diagram for such systems was worked out theoretically in the 1990's, but
needed testing. Prof. Broholm's neutron studies provided the first real
tests of that picture, and showed that the general trends of magnetic
ordering and itinerancy were well described. This work reignited both
experimental and theoretical interest in V2O3 and was a precursor for
subsequent intense interest in orbital ordering transitions in vanadates and
other oxides. His work on fundamental metal physics includes key discoveries
relating to the magnetism of superconductors, ranging

from URu2Si2, in his thesis, to the layered CeTMIn5 compounds of more recent
vintage, as well as that of the recently discovered pnictides. Prof. Broholm
has also championed a great deal of important work on one and two
dimensional quantum magnetic systems. In particular, he performed definitive
experiments on the unusual quantum disorder and triplet excitations in S=1
spin chain compounds, and their distinction from S=1/2 spin chain systems.
Prof. Broholm, his students and colleagues have studied a range of different
frustrated magnetic materials. His pioneering work on the prototypical
kagome system SCGO initiated continuing broad interest in kagome lattice
antiferromagnetism. Experiments on a three-dimensional kagome analogue, the
spinel ZnCr2O4, have established the concept of emergent (spin-cluster)
collective degrees of freedom and the importance of magneto-elastic effects
in frustrated spin states. Influential neutron work on the multiferroic
properties of frustrated magnets led by Prof. Broholm have established how
ferroelectric polarization emerges when magnetic order breaks the inversion

symmetry of the paramagnetic phase of an insulator.

 

Prof. Broholm has also made outstanding contributions in the development of
neutron scattering techniques, beginning with the SPINS cold-neutron
triple-axis spectrometer at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR). He
pursued both sophisticated instrument development and its application to
elegant experimental studies of the most topical problems in condensed
matter physics. The culmination of these instrumentation efforts is the
Multi Axis Crystal Spectrometer (MACS) spectrometer, currently under
commissioning at the NCNR. Using a very large, focusing monochromator and an
array of separate analyzers and detectors, the instrument can sample a large
region of phase space very efficiently. Prof. Broholm also leads an effort
to enable neutron scattering measurements in ultra-high magnetic fields,
e.g., above 30 Tesla, at pulsed neutron sources such as the SNS. This will
open new opportunities to study structure and dynamics in both hard and soft
condensed matter.

 

Collin Broholm is the Gerhard H. Dieke Professor in the Department of
Physics and Astronomy, at Johns Hopkins University where he directs the
Institute for Quantum Matter. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of
Copenhagen in 1988, was a post doc at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1988-1990,
and joined Johns Hopkins in 1990. Prof. Broholm has held important advisory
roles within the US neutron scattering community, including chair of the
Experimental Facilities Advisory Committee of SNS from 2002-2006, and
Program Co-Chair for the 2010 American Conference on Neutron Scattering.

 

 

Dr. Craig Brown

NIST Center for Neutron Research

is the recipient of the

2010 Science Prize

of the Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA) with the citation:

"For outstanding neutron scattering studies of hydrogen-framework
interactions in

metal-organic frameworks"

 

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous materials that possess large
surface areas, but in general early examples of these materials displayed
hydrogen binding energies to the MOF framework that are too small to result
in storage of significant amounts of hydrogen at roomtemperature. Dr.
Brown's research highlights the importance of coordinatively unsaturated
metal centers (CUMCs) in enhancing the binding of hydrogen molecules in
these sorbent materials with the aim of developing hydrogen storage systems
that operate efficiently at room temperature. Using neutron diffraction to
study the structure of a Mn-based MOF as a function  of hydrogen loading, he
isolated four separate locations of the adsorbed hydrogen molecules, showing
that the interaction of hydrogen with the Mn CUMC is responsible for the
rather strong binding in this material.

 

This discovery, along with work on other framework materials containing Cu
or Zn, has served as a basis for the development of related materials with
even higher storage densities. Using inelastic neutron scattering, Dr. Brown
and his collaborators have also investigated hydrogendynamics in these
materials. All of these new insights into how guest hydrogen molecules
interact with MOF frameworks have greatly influenced how chemists tailor new
materials to achieve enhanced hydrogen storage properties. His
accomplishments have established Dr. Brown as a leading expert in the field
of hydrogen storage. 

 

Dr. Brown received his PhD from the University of Sussex and the Institute
Laue Langevin where he studied with Prof. K. Prassides and the late Dr. A.J.
Dianoux. He is currently an  instrument scientist for the Disk Chopper
Spectrometer at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) where he has
been responsible for the operations of several spectrometers over the past
decade. He is the leader of the NCNR effort within the Hydrogen Sorption
Center of Excellence, funded by the US Department of Energy. His outstanding
scientific contributions have also been recognized with a 2008 Presidential
Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor
bestowed by the United States government on young

professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

 

--

Dr. Thomas Proffen

NPDF instrument scientist

Editor Zeitschrift f. Kristallographie

Lujan Neutron Scattering Center, LANL

MS H805, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA

 

Phone: +1 505 665-6573

Fax:   +1 505 665-2676

 

Email: tproffen at lanl.gov

WWW:   http://lansce.lanl.gov/lujan/instruments/NPDF

ID:    http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-3585-2009

 

Export license: TSPA, Correspondence

 

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