PALO ALTO, Calif., April 7 -- The European Physical Society (EPS) has awarded the 2005 Agilent Europhysics Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Condensed Matter Physics, sponsored by Agilent Technologies Inc., to three scientists for their investigations of magnetic semiconductors and spin coherence in the solid state, which has paved the way for the emergence of spin electronics, or "spintronics." Award winners are David Awschalom, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Tomasz Dietl, a professor and a director of the Laboratory for Cryogenic and Spintronic Research at the Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland; and Hideo Ohno, a professor at the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Japan. Awschalom, Dietl and Ohno pioneered a promising area of spintronics with their work on spin effects in semiconductor materials, the class of materials used to make transistors. They have demonstrated new material compositions, methods for injecting spins and novel methods for controlling the direction of spin, Agilent said in a statement. "These discoveries open the door for new devices and systems that exploit the use of spin for storing, processing and communicating information," Agilent said. "They have also demonstrated quantum coherence effects, which in the future could lead to quantum computers with unprecedented capabilities." Agilent has sponsored the Europhysics Prize for the past 30 years (as Hewlett-Packard until 1999). With a cash award of 51,000 Swiss francs, it recognizes scientific excellence and focuses on work that advances the fields of electronic, electrical and materials engineering. A committee appointed by the EPS, including one representative from Agilent, selects the recipients. For more information, visit: www.agilent.com