ENSA PRESS RELEASE (October 27th , 2005) (PDF 0.453 MB)

The fourth award of the prize (10’000 CHF) is to be made at a special ceremony and session at the International Conference on Neutron Scattering, 27^th November to 2^nd December 2005, Sydney, Australia.

The nominations received for the 2005 Hälg Prize were examined by an international selection committee consisting of authorities representing the major scientific disciplines, both within and beyond the field of neutron scattering. The selection committee is delighted to announce that the 2005 Hälg Prize will be awarded exceptionally to both:

Professor Albert Furrer (ETH Zürich and Paul Scherrer Institute)
and
Professor Hans Ulrich Güdel (University of Bern).

in recognition of the important role their continuing collaboration has played in developing new and
interesting magnetic materials and studying them to obtain unique insights into their magnetic properties.


The collaboration began in the 1970's with studies of magnetic cluster compounds that showed the detailed nature of the exchange interactions. The laser rare-earth materials were then studied and showed that the exchange interactions were more complex than expected, but could be understood by taking account of both the initial and final rare earth states. Most recently they have performed elegant experiments on spin dimers and have measured the triplet excitations and shown by applying a magnetic field that they could induce a Bose-Einstein condensation to a magnetically ordered state. All
of these experiments show the importance of the collaboration between the chemist who grows the new materials and the neutron scatterer who studies the detailed nature of the excitations.

Who is Albert Furrer?
Who is Hans Ulrich Güdel?