Sir John Pendry awarded the Kavli Prize 2014 in nanoscience
Sir John Pendry, member of the scientific committee of the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and chairman of the international advisory committee of nanoGUNE, has been awarded the prestigious Kavli Prize, considered as the Nobel Prize for Technology.
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has awarded to the British physicist Sir John Pendry, scientist at Imperial College London and member of the Royal Society, the 2014 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience; the award to the tune of a million euros is being shared with Thomas W. Ebbesen and Stefan W. Hell. When announcing the 2014 prize winners in Oslo this afternoon, the Norwegian academy highlighted the “transformative contributions” made by the three physicists to the field of nanooptics, “by breaking long-term belifs about the limitations of the resolution limits of optical microscopy and imaging”.
Sir John Pendry is a member of the scientific committee of the DIPC and chairman of the international advisory committee of nanoGUNE, and for several years has been collaborating closely with researchers at both centers. The famous physicist is a regular in the DIPC’s popularisation activities and was one of the guest speakers at the last Passion for Knowledge festival in which he gave a talk open to the public at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre, in Donostia-San Sebastian. Sir John Pendry also participates frequently at the top@DIPC – Zientziarekin solasean meetings between leading scientists and students in the Basque Autonomous Community, which the DIPC organises every year.
The British scientist has conducted research of tremendous significance in fields relating to photonics. In collaboration with the company Marconi, Sir John Pendry designed and built a set of “metamaterials” with extraordinary properties. His work on the refractive index led him to predict the “invisibility cloak”.