Prize Recipients 2000 - 2018

The Bernd T. Matthias Prize for 2018 is awarded to PROFESSOR KATSUYA SHIMIZU of Osaka University for his discovery of superconductivity in non-superconducting elements under high pressures with a Tc up to 29 K. The award was presented at the M2S-HTSC Conference in Beijing, China.  

The Bernd T. Matthias Prize for 2015 is awarded to co-recipients PROFESSOR XIANHUI CHEN of the University of Science and Technology of China for his discovery of (Li,Fe)OHFe(Se,S), Yb_x(Me)_yHfNCl (Me= NH3 and THF), and doped phenanthrene, broadening the material base for superconducting studies, to PROFESSOR ZACHARY FISK of the University of California Irvine for the discovery of UBe₁₃, UPt₃, ThCoC_2, and LaRhSi₃, for unraveling the roles of heavy fermions and non-centrosymmetry in superconductivity, and to PROFESSOR ZHONGXIAN ZHAO of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, for the discovery of RE(O,F) and (RE)O_1-xFeAs (RE = rare earth) with a Tc up to 55 K, demonstrating the limit of Tc in bulk Fe-based superconductors. The awards were presented at the M²S-HTSC Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Bernd T. Matthias Prize for 2012 was awarded to co-recipients PROFESSOR DIRK JOHRENDT of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen for his role in the 2008 discovery of the BaFe₂As₂ and related materials that have helped further the research and unravel the physics of the novel Fe-based superconductors, and to DR. IVAN BOZOVIC of Brookhaven National Laboratory and PROFESSOR JAMES ECKSTEIN of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for their pioneering and sustained contributions to novel synthesis and engineering of superconducting materials. The awards were presented at the M²S-HTSC Conference in Washington, DC.

The Bernd T. Matthias Prize for 2009 was awarded to co-recipients PROFESSOR YOSHITERU MAENO of Kyoto University, for his 1994 discovery and subsequent purification of Sr₂RuO₄ that creates a unique platform for revealing decisively some unusual features of superconductivity, and PROFESSOR HIDEO HOSONO of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, for his 2008 discovery of LaO_1-xF_xFeAs that has heralded in the era of Fe-pnictides for the search for and the unraveling of high temperature superconductivity. The awardees delivered remarks following the Prize Ceremony on September 9, 2009, at the M²S-HTSC-IX Conference in Tokyo, Japan.

The Bernd T. Matthias Prize for 2006 was awarded to PROFESSOR DR. FRANK STEGLICH of the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids for his 1979 discovery of CeCu₂Si₂ and the associated novel electronic state that has inaugurated an exciting field of heavy fermion physics. Dr. Steglich delivered the Bernd T. Matthias Prize Lecture entitled “Superconductivity and Magnetism: From Antagonism to Mutual Interplay” on Tuesday, July 11, 2006, at the M²S-HTSC-VIII Conference, held in Dresden, Germany.

The Bernd T. Matthias Prize for 2003 was awarded to PROFESSOR JUN AKIMITSU of Aoyama Gakuin University for his discoveries of novel superconducting compounds MgB₂ and Bi-Sr-Cu-O; and of superconductivity Nd-Ce-Sr-Cu-O and compressed (Sr,CA)₁₄Cu₂₄O_41, that have led to the advancement in T_c, opened up new subfields of research and offered new avenues to practical superconducting wire fabrications. Prof. Akimitsu delivered the Bernd T. Matthias Prize Lecture on May 26, 2003, at the M²S-HTSC-VII Conference, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Bernd T. Matthias Prize for 2000 was awarded to PROFESSOR M. BRIAN MAPLE of The University of California at San Diego for his pioneering contribution to the understanding of superconducting materials in general and interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in particular. Prof. Maple delivered the Bernd T. Matthias Prize Lecture, “Three Decades of Progress on Superconductivity and Magnetism in Novel Materials,” Wednesday, February 23, 2000, at the M²S-HTSC-VI Conference, held in Houston, Texas USA. 

Previous Bernd T. Matthias Prize Recipients

1997:  Beijing, China: BERTRAM BATLOGG and ROBERT J. CAVA for their leading work on a variety of superconductors through the successful combination of creative materials chemistry and physics. 

1994:  Grenoble, France: PAUL C. W. CHU, BERNARD RAVEAU, and M. K. WU for their outstanding discoveries of mixed valence copper oxides which set the stage for, and expanded the horizons of, high-T_c superconductivity. 

1991:  Kanazawa, Japan: HIROSHI MAEDA and YOSHINORI TOKURA for their discoveries of materials that have led to the delineation of essential structural elements in the high temperature superconducting cuprates. 

1989:  Palo Alto, CA, USA: T. H. GEBALLE (Inaugural Prize].

Bernd Teo Matthias (1918-1980) was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on June 8, 1918. He completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1943 at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich and continued his research there for four more years. He immigrated to the United States in 1947. Matthias was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1965 and is most noted for his discovery of nearly 1,000 superconducting materials.

Superconductivity is a phenomenon that occurs in metals at very low temperatures. When a metal is superconductive, it loses all electrical resistance. Electric currents can flow through a ring of superconducting material indefinitely, without losing any energy, as long as the material is kept at the very low temperature at which it becomes superconducting. Matthias’s career focused on the search for materials with ever-higher transition temperatures.

In 1947, Matthias accepted an appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The following year he began an affiliation with the Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. On leave from Bell Labs in 1949-51, Matthias was an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, where he developed a career-long collaborative relationship with Willy Zachariasen, a crystallographer and the head of Chicago’s Physics Department at that time. While at the University of Chicago, Matthias turned to superconductivity and ferromagnetism in collaboration with John K. Hulm. His interest in the relationship between these two phenomena continued throughout his career.

In 1951, Matthias returned to Bell Labs, where he discovered many more superconducting materials and developed the concept of “electron counting.” This was an empirical guide that related the transition temperature of superconducting materials with their number of valence electrons per atom, a tool he used to discover many superconducting materials. Matthias was invited to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as a consultant in the Theoretical Division in 1956 or 1957. In 1961 he joined the physics faculty at the University of California, San Diego, and maintained a part-time presence in the labs at Murray Hill. He also maintained a presence at LANL, collaborating there with some of his former UCSD students, thus participating in and conducting research in three labs simultaneously.

A year after joining the Physics Department at UCSD, Matthias founded the Institute for the Study of Matter, funded first by the Air Force and later by the National Science Foundation. In 1966, the Institute merged with the Physics Department’s Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences under the direction of Keith Brueckner. Matthias became associate director. Matthias explored the boundaries of science and metaphysics in his courses for undergraduates titled “Frontiers of Science.” He was still actively researching and teaching when he died of a heart attack on October 27, 1980.