Prize Recipient

David A Muller
Cornell University

"For pioneering a new generation of electron detectors and phase-sensitive reconstruction algorithms leading to significant advances in the resolution and capabilities of electron microscopes."

David A. Muller is the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University, and co-director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscale Science at Cornell. His research interests include new electron microscopy methods for the atomic-scale control and characterization of matter. He has developed quantitative imaging methods to explore the physical and electronic structures inside objects as diverse as fuel cells, batteries, transistors, and two-dimensional materials. This includes ptychographic imaging to solve the inverse scattering problem at a resolution limited not by the instrumental blur of the microscope, but instead by the thermal vibration of the atoms themselves. Muller received his BSc degree from the University of Sydney, Australia in 1991, and his PhD degree from Cornell University in 1996. He was a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs from 1997-2003. Muller was the recipient of the Microscopy Society of America Burton Medal, the Ernst Ruska Prize from the German Society for Electron Microscopy, the John Cowley Medal from the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy, and the Microanalysis Society of America Duncumb Award. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Microscopy Society of America.