image: Professor Andrea Cavalleri, ecipient of the 2024 EPS Europhysics Prize and Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, Germany
Credit: MPSD Hamburg
Professor Andrea Cavalleri, founding director of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg, Germany, is to be honored with the 2024 EPS Europhysics Prize by the European Physical Society. The EPS is awarding the Prize in recognition of his “pioneering studies of photo-induced emergent phases of quantum materials: from enhanced superconductivity to the control of materials topology”.
At the MPSD, Andrea Cavalleri leads the Condensed Matter Dynamics Department. In the past two decades, he has pursued the development of new techniques to coherently control quantum materials with light, and the use of ultrafast x-ray optical and electrical probes to understand their non-equilibrium dynamics.
His work has led to breakthroughs in the areas of light-induced superconductivity in cuprates, alkali-doped fullerides (K3C60) and in charge transfer salts, of light-induced ferroelectricity in SrTiO3 and of light-induced topological transport in graphene, among others.
For his achievements, Cavalleri has already been honored with the 2015 Max Born Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics in the U.K. and the German Research Foundation (DFG), as well as the 2018 Frank Isakson Prize of the American Physical Society.
He is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and a Co-Director of the New York City Center for Non-Equilibrium Quantum Phenomena. Andrea Cavalleri is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the European Academy of Sciences. He is also a Member of the Academia Europaea.
The EPS Europhysics Prize is one of the most prestigious European awards in the field of condensed matter physics. It has been bestowed upon outstanding researchers since 1975 for scientifically excellent discoveries, breakthroughs or contributions. Last year’s EPS Europhysics Prize was jointly awarded to Claudia Felser from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids and Andrei Bernevig from Princeton University.
The Prize will be presented to Andrea Cavalleri on 4 September during the 31st General Conference of the EPS Condensed Matter Division in Portugal.