DOE Awards Two in Photonics Field

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 -- Two researchers involved in photonics-related research were named receipients of the US Department of Energy's 2004 E.O. Lawrence Awards: Claire Max, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), and Ivan Schuller, a professor in the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) Division of Physical Sciences and Department of Physics, are among seven winners of the award for outstanding contributions in the field of atomic energy. Each winner will receive a gold medal, citation and $50,000 at a ceremony Nov. 8 in Washington.

Max will receive the award in the physics category for her contributions to the theory of laser guide star adaptive optics and its application in ground-based astronomy to correct telescopic images for the blurring caused by light passing through the atmosphere.

Schuller, a physicist, was recognized for his achievements in the materials research category for creating the field of metallic superlattices and recognizing the impact of these materials on magnetism and superconductivity.

The five other winners of this year's Lawrence Awards are Nathaniel Fisch, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Princeton University; Bette Korber, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Fred Mortensen, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Richard J. Saykally, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Gregory W. Swift, Los Alamos
National Laboratory.

The awards were established in 1959 in memory of the pioneering physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron.

For more information, visit: www.energy.gov