Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Prize for superconductivity experiments

John Tranquada
Brookhaven National Laboratory

Citation:
“For pioneering neutron scattering experiments leading to the discovery of the stripe phases in the cuprate high temperature superconductors”

John Tranquada received his BA degree from Pomona College in 1977 and his PhD in physics from the University of Washington in 1983.  After a post-doc at the National Synchrotron Light Source, he joined the Physics Department at Brookhaven National Lab in 1986.  He is presently a Senior Physicist and leader of the Neutron Scattering Group in the Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Dept.

Tranquada’s research has focused on cuprate superconductors, since their discovery in 1986.  In particular, he has used neutron scattering techniques to study the evolution of spin and charge correlations in electronically-doped antiferromagnets, and especially the formation of spin and charge stripe structures.  He and his group are presently investigating the nature of superconducting correlations that coexist with spin and charge stripe order in certain special cuprate compounds.

Tranquada has served as a Divisional Associate Editor for Physical Review Letters and is presently a member of the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee. A Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he received the 2006 Sustained Research Prize of the Neutron Scattering Society of America.

Selection Committee Chair: P. H. Kes