Professor Frank Steglich receives the Fritz London Memorial Prize
Frank Steglich, founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids and now Director emeritus, receives the Fritz London Memorial Prize in 2020. The Prize Committee awards the prize to Professor Steglich "in recognition of his discovery and exploration of the unconventional superconductivity in heavy fermion metals".
The pioneering work for which Professor Steglich is honored is his profound contribution to the development of the field of superconductivity. The so-called heavy fermion superconductors, first brought to prominence by Professor Steglich’s 1979 work on CeCu2Si2, were immediately recognized to lie outside the paradigms laid down in the famous 1957 theory of Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer. Their discovery led quickly to that of several other important classes of superconductors with equally unconventional properties. The resulting revolution in our understanding of superconductivity can therefore be sourced back to the remarkable research of Professor Steglich and the other pioneers of heavy fermion superconductivity. Fritz London was renowned for his own, earlier, contributions to the field of superconductivity, so it is particularly appropriate for Professor Steglich to be a winner of the prize named for him. We offer our warmest congratulations to Frank for this richly deserved recognition.
The award ceremony will take place during the 29th International Low Temperature Physics Conference (LT29) in August 2020 in Sapporo, Japan.
Established in 1957, the Fritz London Memorial Prize is awarded every three years and honors outstanding experimental and theoretical achievements in the field of low temperature physics.