Prize Recipient


Recipient Picture

Paul Canfield
Iowa State University

Citation:

"For his development and elucidation of superconductivity in magnesium diboride and iron pnictide compounds, and his outstanding mentoring and enthusiastic communication of the excitement and importance of Materials Physics."

Background:

Dr. Paul C Canfield graduated, Suma Cum Laude, with a BS in Physics from the University of Virginia in 1983.  He then performed his Master and Ph.D. work at UCLA with Professor George Gruner and received his Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter physics in 1990.  From 1990 – 1993 Dr. Canfield was a post-doctoral researcher in Los Alamos National Laboratory working with Drs. Joe Thompson and Zachary Fisk.  In 1993 Dr. Canfield went to Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University and, over the past 20 years, has become a Senior Physicist in Ames Laboratory and a Distinguished Professor of Physics, holding the Robert Allen Wright Professorship.  Dr. Canfield’s research is centered on the design, discovery, growth and characterization of novel electronic and magnetic materials.  He has made key contributions to the fields of superconductivity, heavy fermions, quantum criticality, quasicrystals, spinglasses, local-moment metamagnetism and metal-to-insulator transitions.  He has helped to educate and train researchers in experimental, new-materials-physics throughout the world, emphasizing the need to tightly couple growth (often in single crystal form) and measurement of new materials. Dr. Canfield is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.  He was awarded the 2011 DOE Lawrence Award for Condensed Matter Physics.


Selection Committee:

Kathleen Kash, Chair; A. Gossard; C. Orme; D. Bonnell; J.L. Bredas