Prize Recipient

Charles Pence Slichter
University of Illinois

Citation:

"For his original and creative applications of the magnetic resonance techniques to elucidate the microscopic properties of condensed matter systems including, especially, superconductors."

Background:

Charles P. Slichter is a pioneer in the development of magnetic resonance and its applications to problems in condensed matter physics, chemistry, and surface science and technology. He obtained his A.B. (1946), M.A. (1947), and Ph.D (1949) from Harvard University, beginning research in magnetic resonance as a student with Purcell just two years after the discovery of NMR. He has taught at the University of Illinois since 1949, and is currently a Professor both of Physics and Chemistry.

With Hebel, he provided "the first experimental proof of the pairing correlation in superconductors" (quote from the Comstock Prize citation). He has made important discoveries about both the normal and superconducting states of high temperature superconductors.

Among his other contributions are the first measurements of the Pauli spin susceptibility, introduction of phase sensitive detection to pulsed NMR and its use to detect weak signals, studies of charge density waves and of the Kondo effect, first demonstration of dynamic nuclear polarization (the Overhauser effect), codiscovery of J-coupling in molecules, theory of 19F chemical shifts, theory of the effects of chemical exchange on NMR spectra, and studies of NMR of metal surfaces (catalysis).

He was the recipient of the Langmuir Prize of the American Physical Society (1969), the triennial prize of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance (1986), and the Comstock Prize of the National Academy of Science (1993).

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1967, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1969, and the American Philosophical Society in 1971.