in recognition of his innovative and outstanding contributions to the science of neutron scattering over the past three decades. His conception, development, construction and application of neutron spin echo techniques opened a hitherto unobtainable energy and time domain for the study of structural and magnetic relaxation processes. The spin echo method is an entirely novel approach to neutron scattering techniques, which allowed for the first time to break the strong coupling between intensity and resolution by using an ingenious encoding mechanism (i.e., the neutron spin) to store information on the neutron state before and after the scattering event. Ferenc Mezei also introduced entirely novel concepts in instrumentation (e.g., Mezei spin flippers and supermirrors and principles of generalised polarisation analysis). The insights provided by neutron spin echo measurements have had far reaching implications for our understanding of physical systems as diverse as magnetic materials, polymers, proteins, glasses, superconducting vortices, solitons, zeolites and quantum fluids (e.g., 4He).

ENSA/Hälg Prize 1999 - F. Mezei - Press Release August 1999 (PDF, 230KB)

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