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In Memoriam (Obituaries) Archive

Alan Lauder
Friday, February 17, 2023
Carl Leonard Goodzeit
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Klaus Irgmaier
Friday, June 28, 2013
George William Crabtree
Monday, January 23, 2023
Mauricio (Mau) de Lima Lopes
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Joe Smith, Jr.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
K. Alex Müller
Monday, January 9, 2023
Lev Petrovich Gor'kov
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Sergey Egorov
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Donald “Bruce” Montgomery
Friday, July 1, 2022
Peter Komarek
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Kiyoshi Tsukasa
Friday, January 25, 2013
Sir Martin Wood
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Giovanni Volpini
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Henry Blosser
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Edward Neil Cliff Dalder
Monday, November 15, 2021
Leszek Motowidlo
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Gordon Donaldson
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Alexander Dmitrievich Kovalenko
Friday, April 30, 2021
Eric Gregory
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Michael Wulf
Friday, November 16, 2012
Robert “Bob” Buhrman
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Eddie Man-Wai Leung
Monday, August 1, 2016
Rob McGrath
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Ryazanov Alexander Ivanovich
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Helen T. Edwards
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Jens Müller
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Sergey Igorevich Kopylov
Friday, December 25, 2020
Konrad H. Fischer
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Carl Henning
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
James Wong
Sunday, October 4, 2020
Karl Gschneidner
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Akira Tonomura
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Rafael Navarro
Friday, September 25, 2020
Colmar Hinnrichs
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Siegfried Wolff
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
John "Jack" F. Mc Donald
Friday, February 21, 2020
William E. "Bill" Keller
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Milan Polák
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Alvin Tollestrup
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Robert John Soulen, Jr.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Marty Lubell
Monday, January 16, 2012
Archie MacRobert Campbell
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Herbert Bousack
Friday, November 13, 2015
Antonio Barone
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Francesco Negrini
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Harry (Henry) Jones
Monday, August 24, 2015
Shoji Tanaka
Friday, November 11, 2011
John Robert Schrieffer
Saturday, July 27, 2019
William Brownfield Fowler
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Clyde Taylor
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Kamel Salama
Friday, July 12, 2019
Viktor Efimovich Keilin
Monday, November 24, 2014
Per Dahl
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Alan F. Clark
Friday, February 1, 2019
Koichi Kitazawa
Friday, September 26, 2014
Ernst-Helmut Brandt
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Hans-Georg Meyer
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Werner Weber
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Igot Yanson
Monday, July 25, 2011
Kyoji Tachikawa
Friday, December 7, 2018
Hirosi Maeda
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Ray Sarwinski
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Roger W. Boom
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
James H. Parker, Jr.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Hisashi Kado
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
William “Bill” R. Shields
Friday, July 13, 2018
Olga L. Polushenko
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Gert Eilenberger
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Fernand D. “Doc” Bedard
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Hans Hillman
Thursday, February 6, 2014
W. James Carr Jr.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Vincenzo (Enzo) Palmieri
Friday, March 16, 2018
Nicola Sacchetti
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Michael Tinkham
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Meyer Garber
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Leo K. Kovalev
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Praveen Chaudhari
Thursday, January 14, 2010
James Nordman
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Alex Shikov
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Vitaly L. Ginzburg
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Henri Desportes
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Nikolai Kopnin
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Zdenek J. J. Stekly
Friday, April 3, 2009
John Alcorn
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Jeffrey A. Stern
Friday, October 11, 2013
Masaki Suenaga
Friday, February 13, 2009
Edgar A. Edelsack
Friday, May 5, 2017
Vladimir Pan
Friday, September 20, 2013
Hiromi Hirabayashi
Friday, April 11, 2008
Alexei Abrikosov
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Øystein Håkon Fischer
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Richard Stacy Withers
David G. Hawksworth
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
John Clem
Friday, August 2, 2013
Hisao Hayakawa
Peter E. Gifford
Sunday, January 29, 2017

Akira Tonomura

April 25, 1942 to May 2, 2012
Akira Tonomura, May 2, 2012 (photo ca. 2006)
Akira Tonomura Passed Away at 70
May 2, 2012 (PO8); updated May 7, 2012 (PO8-1).  Akira Tonomura of Hitachi Central Research Laboratory died of pancreatic cancer early on May 2, 2012, at a hospital in Hidaka, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. He was 70. Tonomura was best known for developing electron holography for observing microscopic structures in matter using the wave nature of electrons and confirming the so-called Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect, the existence of which had long been disputed among physicists.  He was tipped as a future Nobel Prize winner for years.  The sad news above we cite after the online Kyodo News of May 2, 2012. 
 
Tonomura was born on April 25th, 1942.  He graduated from Tokyo University (1965) and obtained his two doctoral degrees from Nagoya (Engineering, 1975) and Gakushuin (Philosophy/Physics) Universities. Joined Hitachi in 1965 and performed part of his doctoral research at Tübingen University, Germany (1973-1974 under G. Möllenstedt). In 1999 he became Fellow of Hitachi, the most prestigious level attainable there by a scientist. In 2001 he became also the Group Director of Single Quantum Dynamics Research Group at RIKEN.  From 2003 to 2005 he served as President of Japanese Society of Microscopy.
 
After being for some years a visiting professor at Toyo University, TIT and Denki University, he became Professor of Toyo University (2008-2010).  In 2011 was appointed Professor of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University.
 
Tonomura was Fellow of numerous societies of which we mention here the Japanese Society of Appl. Phys., APS (from 1999), the Microscopy Society of America, Eur. Phys. Soc., Institute of Physics (UK, 2007) and of AAAS (USA, 2007).  Of his many honors and awards we list here the Nishina Memorial Prize (1982), Asahi Prize (1987), Japan Academy Prize and Imperial Prize (1991), and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics (1999, USA).  He became Member of Science Council of Japan (2005), Foreign Associate of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science (2006), and Member of the Japan Academy in 2007.
 
Tonomura’s contributions to superconductivity started nearly a quarter of century ago when his group studied the AB effect and made the first single flux quantum observation by electron-holographic spectroscopy1. Subsequently, he and his group made real-time observations of vortex lattices in type II superconductors2 by Lorentz microscopy, and published multiple contribution on studies of such lattices and flux pinning in   low- and high-Tc superconductors. The more complete overview of his numerous achievements in science can be found here.

1T. Matsuda et al.Phys. Rev. Lett62 2519 (1989).
2K. Harada et al., Nature360 51 (1992).

Siegfried Wolff

January 1, 1939 to March 13, 2012
Siegfried Wolff with a dipole magnet,1983
Siegfried Wolff 1939-2012
August 1, 2012 (PO12). Siegfried Wolff, a well known superconducting magnet expert, passed away after a long illness on March 13, 2012, at the age of 73. After his Physics Diploma in 1965 Wolff joined the bubble chamber group at DESY in Hamburg, Germany as a technical physicist. He made substantial contributions to the successful operation of the liquid hydrogen and deuterium bubble chamber and obtained his PhD in 1969 at the University of Hamburg with a thesis on bubble formation and growth in hydrogen and deuterium bubble chambers.
 
In the early 1970s, when the electron-positron storage ring DORIS was constructed, Siegfried Wolff moved over to magnet design and measurement. He designed the compensation coils for a DORIS experiment equipped with a superconducting solenoid, and under his leadership the magnetic measurements for the larger storage ring PETRA were carried out. When the proton-electron collider HERA was proposed, Siegfried Wolff joined the task force which was formed by Bjorn Wiik to design and construct the superconducting accelerator magnets of the proton ring. Wolff spent a sabbatical at Fermilab in 1979/1980 where he worked in the superconducting magnet group and acquired a thorough knowledge of the design principles and construction of the superconducting dipoles and quadrupoles for the Tevatron. Back at DESY he contributed heavily to the design of the HERA dipoles and quadrupoles, and in his group of engineers and technicians a number of protype dipoles were built that performed very well and exceeded the design field of 5 Tesla. In 1984 a radical design change was proposed to increase the field capability of the magnets and improve their quench safety. The warm-iron yoke of the Tevatron-like design was to be replaced by a cold-iron yoke directly surrounding the aluminium-collared coil. Within record time Wolff’s group built a short prototype of the new dipole which reached a field of 6 Tesla without training. The new magnet concept proved extremely successful in the industrially produced HERA magnets and had a strong impact on the design of the LHC magnets. During the construction phase of HERA, Wolff and his group performed the electric and cryogenic installation of the HERA proton ring.
 
When the HERA collider was completed, Wolff became head of the cryogenics group at DESY. He and his group contributed strongly to the successful R&D on superconducting cavities with accelerating fields above 25 MV/m, which was carried out by the international TESLA collaboration. Wolff’s group was also involved in the cryostat construction and provided the cryogenics for the TESLA Test Facility linac which was later upgraded to the free-electron laser FLASH.
 
Siegfried Wolff was a superconducting magnet expert of international reputation. He was a member of various advisory committees, among them the LHC Machine Advisory Committee, and he was co-author of a book on superconducting accelerator magnets. Siegfried Wolff will be remembered by his friends and colleagues for his great technical competence, his fairness and reliability, and his willingness to accept responsibility for demanding projects.
(By friends and colleagues at DESY)

 

Milan Polák

January 1, 1937 to January 31, 2012
Milan Polák, January 31, 2012
Milan Polák Passed Away at 74
 
February 2, 2012 (PO7).  Slovak scientist, Dr. Milan Polák, passed away on January 31st, 2012, after a severe short illness.  His rather sudden departure at 74 came as a sad surprise to his colleagues and co-workers in Slovakia and abroad.  He has been well-known to the superconductivity community through his active studies of electromagnetic properties of superconductors, superconducting magnets and devices, in particular on AC losses and related problems.
 
Milan Polák was born in 1937 in Strekov, finished university studies in 1960, got his Ph.D. in 1967 and the habilitation (D.Sc.) in 1989, both at Slovak Academy of Science (SAS) in Bratislava. From 1967 to 1969 he was in Giessen and Karlsruhe as Alexander von Humboldt Scholar, 1983 – 84 as lecturer at the L´Úniversité National de Gabés in Tunis and 1992–95 as visiting scientist in the Applied Superconductivity Center, Madison. Since 1960 he is with the Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE), Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, Slovakia.
 
Polák made significant contributions to applied superconductivity, e.g., designed and tested NbTi coils for the generation of magnetic fields at industrial frequencies, AC loss measurements of superconductors and superconducting coils, development of low AC loss YBCO superconductors. He successfully managed several national and international research projects and published about 190 publications in international journals.
 
For 50 years he was active in the Institute Electrical Engineering of SAS and, to the end of his activity, liked the “hands on” experimental work in laboratory, which was a stimulating example also for much younger colleagues.  He was also as a member of several scientific boards and, as the director of IEE, was also involved in effective reorganization of the Institute of Electrical Engineering at the time of “political change”. 
 
Milan was a very creative colleague, and up to the end of his live stimulated others to useful activities.  His colleagues and collaborators appreciated his experience and knowledge as well as his friendship and sense for humour.  For this author it was a special privilege to spend with him the time of his last MT-22 conference (Sept. 2011) and also participate in experiments performed together during his last years.

P. Kováč
IEE SAS

 

Marty Lubell

June 5, 1932 to January 16, 2012
Marty Lubell (in 1990s)
Marty Lubell of ORNL Died in Early 2012
August 1, 2012 (PO11).  Another loss to superconducting community came only now to our attention.
 
Martin S. (Marty) Lubell, age 79, of Oak Ridge, passed away Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, at his home in Oak Ridge.  Marty was born June 5, 1932, in New York City, N.Y., graduated from MIT and got his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley.  He initially worked at the Westinghouse Research Laboratories under Clarence Zener, but in 1959 moved from Pittsburgh, PA to Oak Ridge, TN, and worked as a physicist at ORNL and Y-12 until his retirement.
 
Marty was the Chairman of the 1982 ASC held in Knoxville. Among other his activities, he led the Oak Ridge superconducting magnet group that put together and tested the Large Coil Task (LCT) superconducting tokamak test solenoid of the early 1980s. Each of the “D” coils of that solenoid was constructed by a different commercial company or laboratory in order to get world wide experience in the construction of these devices.  Marty was publishing on the LCF test results, see RN26.
 
Marty was a member of the Jewish Congregation of Oak Ridge, the Knoxville Museum of Art, and the United States Chess Federation; he wrote one of the 100 Greatest Chess Problems and was the Tri-State Chess Champion when he lived in Pittsburgh. He enjoyed refereeing soccer for both the AYSO (American Youth Soccer Association) and competitive leagues, skiing and the arts.

Antonio Barone

January 1, 1939 to December 4, 2011
Antonio Barone - December 4, 2011
Antonio Barone Dies on December 4, 2011
December 10, 2011 (PO6).  Antonio Barone (AB) prematurely passed away on Dec 4th 2011 at the age of 72, after a one-year battle with cancer. He left behind his wife Sveva and his two sons, Alberto and Livio. Antonio was currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Napoli Federico II, where he had been teaching for about 40 years.
The initial research activity of AB was in the field of nuclear physics. In this context, almost 45 years ago, the Ge “Lithium drift” semiconductor detectors represented a novelty, due to the high energy resolution allowed by those devices. Superconductors stimulated new approaches to radiation detection and this motivated Antonio’s interests toward superconductivity.
 
In the 1967 the birth of the Laboratorio di Cibernetica of the CNR offered him the possibility to work in a joint project USA-Italy (University of Wisconsin, Madison - CNR Naples) in the field of superconductivity on the peculiar subject of the superconductive “Neuristors”. His research activity on Josephson junctions opened a wide variety of very stimulating subjects in which AB was deeply involved, ranging from the soliton propagation in “long” Josephson structures to fluctuations phenomena, from light-sensitive junctions and proximity effect to the development of innovative superconducting devices.
 
The strong interaction of AB with the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Academy of Sciences, in Moscow, characterizes a long period of his research activity with a precious merging of theoretical and experimental aspects. All this body of work converged into the famous monograph on the “Physics and Applications of the Josephson Effect”, written in collaboration with Gianfranco Paternò in 1982. This became rapidly the reference text for the Josephson effect, as documented by thousands of citations and the fact it was translated into Russian, Japanese and Chinese. In 1983, AB was awarded by the Academy of Sciences in Moscow the highest academic title of “Doctor of the Physical-Mathematical Sciences”, and later the coveted Kapitza Prize.
The discovery of high-Tc superconductors (HTS) opened new problems and perspectives. In this context, AB and his group, significantly contributed by reporting original results on the “archetype” high-Tc Josephson junctions. Of great impact were the studies on unconventional superconductivity, first developed for ”p-wave” superconductors, but definitely very inspiring for the d-wave experiments on HTS compounds, and later on the physics of HTS Josephson junctions.
 
Macroscopic quantum phenomena and “particle detectors” are the keywords and the logical paths where to bring back several relevant contributions of Antonio scattered in more than 40 years of activity. Topics of his interest ranged from the fundamentals of macroscopic quantum tunnelling to barrier penetration in nonstationary fields, to finally a project into a wider vision of macroscopic quantum phenomena in unconventional systems.
 
Antonio is universally considered not only the founder of the Superconductivity School in the Napoli area, but also as the “grande maestro” and one of the most representative physicists in Italy. He has filled very relevant positions of scientific management in Italy and participated in many international committees. He has significantly contributed to the popularization of superconductivity as a divulgator, as a professor, as a researcher and as a manager.
 
An intense wave of sympathy and friendships has arrived from all over the world testifying how his gentleness, his sense of science and his smile were a solid bridge of friendship and respect with colleagues, students and people of everyday life. This premature departure cannot be dissociated from so many years spent working together. This moment cannot be dissociated from the awareness of having had the privilege to deal with a real gentleman of science and life, a man of vision and perspective.

Francesco Tafuri, Giampiero Pepe and Ruggero Vaglio.

 

 

Shoji Tanaka

September 17, 1927 to November 11, 2011
Prof. Tanaka at ISS2011, Oct. 24, 2011
Shoji Tanaka of ISTEC Died Suddenly at 84
November 14, 2011 (PO5).  Professor Shoji Tanaka, the preeminent luminary of Japanese superconductivity community suddenly died of pneumonia on November 11, 2011, at the age of 84.  The Funeral ceremony was held on November 15th. 
 
The IEEE Council on Superconductivity and European Society for Applied Superconductivity express their sincere condolences to ISTEC and all Japanese colleagues.
 
Shoji Tanaka was born on September 17, 1927.  He obtained his B.S. in Applied Mathematics (1950) and Ph.D. in Engineering (1961) from the University of Tokyo.  In 1999 he became honorary D.Sc. degree from the Purdue University, USA.  In 1955 he was appointed Lecturer, in 1958 Associate Professor and in 1968 full Professor of the University of Tokyo.  Upon his retirement in 1988 he was appointed Professor at the Department of Physics, Tokai University.  He was also Consultant Professor of the Shanghai University, China.
 
Professor Tanaka was best known worldwide for his group’s confirmation of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprate oxides (1986) and the leadership of the International Superconductivity Technology Center (ISTEC).   In 1988, he was appointed the first Director General of ISTEC’s Superconductivity Research Laboratory (SRL), which he directed until 2008.  In 1988 he also became the Vice President of ISTEC.  Currently, he was still Advisor to ISTEC/SRL.  In his role, he wielded significant influence in the Japanese science community.  We include the last unofficial photograph of him, a snapshot taken on October 24th at the ISS 2011 conference ( 24th International Symposium on Superconductivity, held at Tower Hall Funabori, Tokyo, October 24 to 26th), not much over two weeks before his passing away.
 
Shoji Tanaka was author or co-author of about 500 publications, of these over hundred preceding his first involvement with oxide superconductivity (in BaPb1-xBixO3 system) around 1984.  His earlier interests concentrated among others on magnetoresistance and galvanomagnetic effects in semiconductors, for example doped  Si, CdS, etc.  He was also active in various semiconductor device structures, electron transport phenomena, and charge density wave effects in two-dimensional materials.  He contributed to ESNF by his reminiscences “The History of ISTEC” (RN18, April 2011).
 
Professor Tanaka was decorated by the Emperor of Japan with the Purple Ribbon Medal in 1990 and with the 3rd Class Order of Merit of the Rising Sun in 1999.  He also received numerous prizes: the Technical Achievement Prize of the World Congress on Superconductors in 1988, and the Greatest Prize of the Japan Ceramics Association, also in 1988. In 2003, the Japan Society of Applied Physics presented to Prof. Tanaka the Outstanding Achievement Award, and in 2004 the IEEE Council on Superconductivity presented to him the IEEE Max Swerdlow Award for Sustained Service to the Applied Superconductivity Community. 
 
We make accessible the official ISTEC obituary received on November 15th.

Clyde Taylor

December 5, 1930 to October 16, 2011
Clyde Taylor (date unknown)
Clyde Taylor of LLNL and LBNL Passed Away
August 1, 2012 (PO10).  Only now we learned that Clyde Taylor passed away November 16, 2011.  We publish this obituary based on the LBNL remembrance released by the LBNL News Center.
 
Clyde Taylor, a pioneer of superconducting magnet technology at both Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories (LLNL and LBNL), died suddenly on November 16, 2011 at the age of 80.
 
Clyde was born December 5, 1930, in Susanville, CA, and attended Stanford University, where he majored in engineering.  He received his B.S. in 1952 and M.S. in mechanical engineering in 1953.  He then moved to Ventura and became Chief Drilling Engineer for Shell Oil Company’s West Coast Operations.
 
In 1956 Clyde began his work in superconducting magnets at Lawrence Livermore Lab, rising to become assistant director of the Lab’s magnetic confinement fusion program. He was active in Livermore community affairs and served on planning commissions and the city council, before being elected mayor of Livermore.
 
Livermore Lab’s fusion program at the time focused on mirror machines, in which plasma was confined by increasing gradients along magnetic field lines. Such machines required superconducting materials that could remain stable at very low temperatures while carrying very high currents and generating high magnetic fields. Livermore’s Jon Zbasnik recalls that, as part of the effort to build the Fusion Engineering Research Facility, and later the Mirror Fusion Test Facility – for which Clyde developed the “yin-yang” magnet configuration – he initiated research on niobium-tin, which is still at the  leading edge of superconducting magnet technology.
Clyde left Livermore in 1981 to join Berkeley Lab as head of the Supercon Group in the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division (AFRD), often working closely with Shlomo Caspi of Berkeley Lab’s Engineering Division. Clyde became head of the multilab engineering team that won the magnet design competition for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), whose planning efforts were based at Berkeley Lab. The SSC was canceled in 1993, but Caspi recalls that Clyde’s engineering skills and talent for management had led DOE to recognize AFRD’s strong position and unique analytical skills in the superconducting magnet field.
 
Clyde renewed his interest in niobium-tin as essential for advanced magnets when he led AFRD research toward achieving extraordinarily strong magnetic fields, beyond 10 tesla; he designed the first magnet to use windings of the material, according to Ron Scanlan, who in 1994 traded roles with Clyde and became supervisor of AFRD’s magnet group. The niobium-tin magnet they built achieved 13.6T in 1997, still a record. Today, similar magnets play an important role in AFRD’s designs for the planned Large Hadron Collider upgrade. During those years Clyde also put in place a special cabling machine at AFRD, which served as a prototype for industry and continues to supply cable to several DOE labs today.
 
At this time, as Scanlan recalls, Clyde also developed a solution to a major problem limiting the performance of accelerator magnets: the movement of structural elements under the tremendous forces generated by the magnets themselves, which can lead to disastrous “quenches.” His solution was a system of keys and bladders filled with liquid metal to prestress critical components. Refined by Shlomo Caspi, the bladder and key design made possible a series of record-breaking superconducting magnets built at Berkeley Lab.
 
Beginning in 1995, Clyde developed the “superbend” insertion devices that allowed the Advanced Light Source, built to optimize soft x-ray production, to extend operations well into the hard x-ray region, a requirement for protein-crystallography beamlines that are among the ALS’s most productive, according to AFRD’s Alan Jackson. Developed in cooperation with an industrial firm, Wang NMR, the Superbends are unique to the ALS among the world’s synchrotron light sources, which now has several of them.
 
Also in 1995, Clyde applied the bladder and key concept to his design for the superconducting magnet structure of a new kind of ion source for the 88-Inch Cyclotron, proposed by Claude Lyneis of the LBNL Nuclear Science Division. Called VENUS (”versatile ECR ion source for nuclear science”), the new source would be capable of producing high currents of ions, from hydrogen all the way to uranium, but required the highest magnetic fields ever achieved in this kind of ion source. Lyneis notes that the outstanding performance of VENUS, completed in 2003, was a key factor in enabling the rare ion beam facility now under construction at Michigan State University.
 
Clyde continued to work on both the Superbends and VENUS after his 1996 retirement and subsequent rehire as a consultant, continuing part time at the Lab until 2008. His lifelong enthusiasm for long-distance bicycle trips, backpacking, and cross-country skiing continued, as did his passion for travel abroad and for theater.
 
Clyde is warmly remembered by his many associates over the years as “a true gentleman” (Alan Jackson); “a very sincere, very kind, and very warm person, with great devotion to his work” (Bert Wang); “my mentor, supervisor, and friend for over 25 years, and one of the best people I have known” (Ron Scanlan); “a gentle person, soft-spoken and a great traveling companion [who] liked people and was eager to help, especially young people at the beginning of their career” (Shlomo Caspi); and many others, including Claude Lyneis, who put together the LBNL remembrance.
 

 

Per Dahl

August 1, 1932 to October 1, 2011
Per Dahl Succumbed to Cancer
May 16, 2012 (PO9).  Belatedly, we learned that Per Dahl passed away in 2011.  Below we reproduce in full the obituary submitted by Peter Wanderer of Brookhaven National Laboratory.
 
Per Fridtjof Dahl, a physicist expert in superconducting accelerator magnets, artist, and historian of modern physics died on October 1, 2011 after a two-to-three year-long struggle with lung cancer.
 
Per Dahl was born at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., on August 1, 1932.  His parents were Odd Dahl, from Drammen, Norway, and Anna Augusta (Vesse), from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  Dahl was born while his father was working at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C.  In 1936, his father saw the war coming and decided to take his family back to Bergen, Norway.  He returned to Norway in 1937 to oversee science in Norway during the war. 
 
Dahl grew up in Bergen, Norway, from the age of 4 until he was 17.  He then came to the U.S. and served three years in the U.S. Army, including two years stationed on Guam in the Pacific.  Taking after his father, Dahl was interested in science and physics from an early age.  He studied science during his Army years, and after leaving the service he entered the University of Wisconsin, obtaining his Ph.D. in Physics in 1960.  His post-doctoral work was done at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark.
 
Per Dahl joined the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in 1963.  He arrived at a time when superconductors were beginning to move from laboratory development to industrial production. At this time, development of accelerator magnets using NbTi and Nb3Sn began. Per became involved in the design of these magnets early in his BNL career and acquired a good understanding both of the materials and their use in magnets.  He put this knowledge to good use later in his BNL career when he became the principal person writing about magnets and superconductors for technically-oriented audiences.  This work also provided him with an opportunity to display his skills as an artist. His drawing that shows all the critical components of a superconducting cable is still used in talks for visitors to Brookhaven. 
 
Per began working on the larger stage of the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) in 1987, where he continued work documenting the magnet program.  When the SSC effort moved from the design location, Berkeley, to the laboratory location in Texas, Per expanded his work to include both the documentation of the conventional construction effort and preparation of information in support of the SSC mission (e.g., publisher of the SSC News).
 
Following termination of the SSC project in 1993, Per moved to the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL).  During much of that time he was on leave to the Office of High Energy Physics, where he was Program Officer for a number of university grants.  He also consulted with BNL about the nascent RHIC magnet system. He retired from LBNL in 1996 but kept contact with the lab through a visiting scientist appointment and work at the Office for the History of Science and Technology at UC-Berkeley until 2005.
 
Dahl is the author of numerous scientific papers and several books:  From Nuclear Transmutation to Nuclear Fission, 1932-1939 (Institute of Physics Publishing, Co., Bristol, England and Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2002); Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy (Institute of Physics Publishing, Co., UK, Bristol England and Philadelphia, PA, USA, 1999), which was featured in the NOVA TV-production, Hitler’s Sunken Secret, DOX Production, London, 2004; Flash of the Cathode Rays: A History of J.J. Thomson’s Electron (Institute of Physics Publishing, Co., UK, Bristol, England and Philadelphia, USA, 1997); Superconductivity: Its Historical Roots and Development from Mercury to the Ceramic Oxides (American Institute of Physics, New York, 1992); Ludvig Colding and the Conservation of Energy Principle: Experimental and Philosophical Contributions, The Sources of Science N. 104 (Johnson Reprint Corp., New York and London, 1972).
 
Throughout his life, Dahl was able to pursue his love for physics, art and his family.  While at Brookhaven, he was a president of the South Bay Art Association (1967-1968), and he was also the president of the Brookhaven National Laboratory Art Society for several years.  He was a fellow of the American Physical Society.
 
He is survived by his devoted wife of 45 years, Eleanor, and two sons: Erik (married to Christa), of Pebble Beach, CA; and Thomas (married to Jo) and two grandchildren, Emily and Alex, of Westford, MA. 
 
Peter Wanderer, Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY
Eleanor Dahl, Emeryville, CA
Erik J. Dahl, Pebble Beach, CA and Thomas F. Dahl, Westford, MA

 

Ernst-Helmut Brandt

September 17, 1941 to September 1, 2011
Ernst-Helmut Brandt
Ernst-Helmut Brandt Succumbed to Cancer
September 9, 2011 (PO3).  On September 1st 2011, Dr. Ernst-Helmut Brandt died peacefully (in his sleep) at home, thus succumbing to an inoperable pancreatic cancer. The vortex community in superconductivity thus lost one of best-known and respected theoreticians.
 
Ernst-Helmut Brandt was born in Berlin-Kaulsdorf on September 17, 1941, as the second son of the publisher and bookseller Helmut Brandt and Elise Brandt nee Stümpfle. His love of nature and his interest in technical tinkering Ernst Helmut developed already as a child. From October 1961 to June 1967, he studied physics at the University of Stuttgart and the Technical University and the Free University of Berlin (Summer 1966).  From June 1967 to June 1969 he finished the doctoral thesis under Professor Alfred Seeger at the Max PlanckInstitute for Metals Research and the University of Stuttgart. From December 1969 to October 1970 he was a visiting scientist at the Lomonosov University in Moscow. 
 
Since then, Ernst Helmut spoke fluently Russian and had many friends in and from the former Soviet Union.  In 1970, at the age of only 29, he got a permanent position as researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research, Institute of Physics in Stuttgart.  The main area of his work was the theory of vortices in type II superconductors. With over 330 publications including 32 Physical Review Letters, and the total number of  11, 400 citations (1 paper 763 times, another 640 times) and a Hirsch (h) – index of 58 he belonged to the most successful physicists of Germany.  He served the community also by supervising numerous doctoral dissertations in many countries, partly in their native language. He had profound knowledge of Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese and Swedish.  After retiring in September 2006, he continued his scientific work, was attending scientific meetings and continued publishing.
 
Ernst Helmut Brandt made a lasting contribution to his field of endeavor and will be remembered as a model of excellent working attitude and highly ethical behavior in research.

(Abbreviated and edited from a draft by Prof.Klaus Morawetz, Münster Univ. of Applied Science)

Igot Yanson

March 18, 1938 to July 25, 2011
Igor Yanson 1938-2011
Igor Yanson Deceased at 73
September 28, 2011 (PO4).  On July 25, 2011, Professor Igor Yanson has tragically passed away. Igor was born in Kharkov, Ukraine (USSR) on March 18, 1938. Although he never had a chance to meet his father, who fell victim to the Stalinist regime, due to his mother’s efforts he had graduated with honors from the specialized secondary music school and developed a keen interest in radio-electronics. Sharing these two passions throughout his life, in 1957 joined the Kharkov State University to study radio-electronics, and in 1958 the St. Petersburg (Leningrad) State Conservatory to study piano. Graduating cum laude from the former in 1961, he had pursued his passion for science at the Kharkov Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering, where he worked ever since. Being accustomed to finishing everything he started, in 1963 he also graduated cum laude from the conservatory as a performing pianist.
 
Upon choosing science as his true calling, already in 1964 he was the first to detect the radiation of the non-stationary Josephson effect in superconductors. For this discovery he received the Ukraine Youth Prize on science and technology in 1967. This work has been mentioned by Brian Josephson in his Nobel Prize lecture in 1973. From that moment and to his last day Igor Yanson remained an internationally renowned scientist, always at the frontier of experimental physics. In 1979 he published a seminal paper on DNA mass spectrometry, and in 1974 he had experimentally discovered a completely new and very powerful method in solid state physics – the Point Contact Spectroscopy (PCS). Together with his colleague Igor Kulik, who provided theoretical support, and others, he has perfected this method to its present state, where it has become an established tool, at hand in every laboratory, for the investigation of the electron-quasiparticle interactions in metals and other conductors at the nanoscale down to one-atom contacts.

For his work, and especially for PCS,  he received the Ukraine State Prize in 1980, the EPS Europhysics prize in 1987, the Humboldt Research award in 1996, and the Lisa Meitner Prize in 2008. In 1979 he was elected a corresponding member, and in 1992 he became a full member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In his 50 years at the Institute for Low Temperature Physics in Kharkov he had gathered in his department a team of scientists with whom he co-authored five monographs and over two hundred and fifty scientific articles in most renowned journals.  They will carry his work further.

Igor Yanson is survived by his wife, four children and five grandchildren, who inherited both his passion for music and for experimental science.

(Authored by Yanson department colleagues with Yanson family approval)

 

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