Vivien Zapf receives Lee Osheroff Richardson prize

Annual award to promote and support the development of early career young North American scientists

Feb. 24, 2010—Vivien Zapf of the Lab’s Materials Physics and Applications Division is the recipient of the 2010 Lee Osheroff Richardson U.S. Prize for research in physical science. The annual award, sponsored by Oxford Instruments NanoScience, which designs and manufactures tools and systems for industry and research in science and technology, is given to promote and support the career development of early career scientists in North America who conduct research employing low temperatures and/or high magnetic fields.   A committee of senior academics throughout North America selects the recipient.

Zapf's colleagues nominated her for her work on Bose-Einstein condensation in quantum magnets. She studies the fundamental properties of materials, including quantum magnets, superconductors and other correlated-electron systems, at high magnetic fields and low temperatures. Zapf is currently researching magneto-electric and multiferroic effects in quantum magnets that are composite organic-metallic hybrids. She also investigates the physics of quantum magnets at low temperatures, including the Bose-Glass to Bose-Einstein condensation phase transition, which is analogous to the metal-to-insulator transition for fermions, and the effect of quantum fluctuations on boson masses. Zapf has published nearly 60 journal articles.

The Lee Osheroff Richardson Prize is named after the joint winners of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics (David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff, and Robert C. Richardson) for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3 and is endorsed by the British Embassy, Washington, DC, under the UK Science & Technology Programme. Zapf will receive the award, which includes an $8,000 cash prize, at the American Physical Society meeting in March in Portland, Oregon.

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Vivien Zapf