In Memoriam

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 Planck Institute 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)

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)

Ray Sarwinski Passed Away in March 2011

August 8, 2012 (PO14).  Raymond Edmund (Ray) Sarwinski was born Jan 11, 1936. He was raised in Peru, Illinois, where he attended the St. Beade Academy (a Catholic high school), of which he was later a benefactor, and the LaSalle College. His academic education included a B.S. in Physics, an M.S. in Physics/Mathematics and Ph.D. in Engineering Physics, all from the University of Illinois. His Ph.D. dissertation was on a NMR method of spin-echo to measure diffusion coefficients. His advisor was John Wheatley who later moved to the University of California at San Diego and also founded S.H.E. Corporation, the first ever SQUID and ultra-low temperature cryogenics (dilution refrigerator) company.

Ray's first employer was the Ohio State University, where he was a Research Associate (1966-1967) and assistant Professor (1967-1972). During the summer of 1970, Wheatley asked Ray to become SHE's first president, but he declined, wanting to keep his faculty position. However, in 1972 he moved to San Diego, CA to join SHE as its Senior Physicist, becoming SHE's Manager of R&D. Ray's work with Georgio Frossati at the Centre de Recherches sur les Très Basses Températures in Grenoble, France led to the development of SHE's 400 and 500 series of dilution refrigerators that achieved temperatures as low as 2.9 mK.

In 1982, Ray became an independent consultant at an impressive number of institutions and companies, including Quantum Design, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, BioMagnetic Technologies, Aerojet General, Physical Dynamics, GWR Instruments, General Atomics, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, R. G. Hansen & Associates, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Hughes Aircraft, Maxwell Laboratories, CryoFab Australia, CeramPhysics, Applied Superconetics, Imotron, the University of California at San Francisco's Physics Research Laboratory, Ball Aerospace, Advanced CryoMagnetics, Tristan Technologies, Conductus, Toshiba America Magnetic Imaging, Cryogen, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Alpha Magnetics, International Cryogenics, Primex Physics, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Aerie Partners among others.  Ray founded his own company, the Cryogenic Designs, Inc., of San Diego, of which he was the President and CEO. One of its products was coil-foil which is used in many high performance non-magnetic liquid helium dewars for biomagnetic measurements.  It became also Ray’s consulting base.

During his career, Ray published over 30 refereed scientific publications in the field of low temperature physics and technology, including papers on low temperature properties of matter, superconductivity, NMR, dewars, SQUID instruments, sensors and cryogenic refrigeration. He was also granted 30 patents for his inventions related to the development of diverse devices such as the stabilized point contact toroidal rf SQUID, vapor-shielded metal and non-metal helium dewars, integration of cryocoolers and storage dewars to prolong hold time (including the first 1000 day hold-time liquid helium dewar), ELF SQUID receivers, towable horizontal dewars, ultra-low temperature dilution refrigerators and the variable temperature superconducting susceptometer. Ray's experience included also the development of custom designed cryogenic systems, scientific programming, level detectors, variable temperature ground based satellite coolers and cascade JT refrigerators. He was also involved in design of MRI magnets for both superconducting and permanent magnet coils, active and passive shielded magnet systems, magnet shim coil design and iron placement to produce homogenous fields.

Ray's honors included: 3M Teaching Fellow, Alfred E. Sloan Research Fellow, and Membership on the U.S. National Committee for the International Institute of Refrigeration.

Ray was a special person with many interests. The long list included photography, science fiction, astronomy, magic tricks, guns, board games, poker, orchids, esoteric plants, old cars (Lincoln continental, Mustang), dressing up for certain holidays (Halloween or Comic-Con), model planes and model helicopters, motorcycling, flying, collecting old and diverse things such as angel collections, coins, juke boxes, old autos, collection of buttons, and Star Wars. He loved swap meets and would share his special finds with other collectors. He had a certain "old codger reputation". He bought his last motorcycle about 1 year ago before passing away.

He had also an interest in computers, however, he continued arguing and fighting with them to make them do what he wanted to do regardless of computer limitations. Eventually, he would call for help. But as soon as he would go back to work on it, the same things would happen again.

Ray never had an unkind word to say about anyone. He loved his two sons and his friends. He would do anything to help them and assisted in solving their problems in his own special style. His last months were difficult due to a plethora of health problems. He was prepared for his departure and settled in advance all details of it, including funeral and celebration instructions.  Ray passed away on March 23, 2011.  His ashes were dispersed on the Pacific Ocean from a cryogenic dewar.

(The remembrance above is based on information, documents and photos supplied by Mrs. Marilyn Hauck.  Additional input and/or revisions were provided by: William Black, Robert Fagaly, Eugene Hirschkoff, Douglas Paulson and Ronald Sager.)

Hisashi Kado Succumbed to Cancer

December 27, 2010 (PO1).  Hisashi Kado, a pioneer of modern biomagnetic SQUID instrumentation in Japan passed away on December 22nd, 2010, after a three-year-long battle with cancer. He left behind his wife and three sons.

Hisahi was born on February 7th, 1948 and graduated from the Department of Biophysical Engineering, faculty of Engineering Science at the Osaka University in 1971.  His PhD degree he also obtained from Osaka University, in 1984.

In 1971 Hisashi joined the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL) and started his research activity by getting involved in measurements of human hearing system and developing non-invasive methods of functional measurement of biological system. From mid-1980s on, he was developing SQUID and biomagnetic measurement systems at ETL, and eventually joined the Superconducting Sensor Laboratory (SSL), a MITI¹ consortium-type project (1990-1996) to develop large, multichannel magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems for human brain research and diagnostics. Hisashi was appointed the Research Director of SSL, a position equivalent to Chief Technical Officer in a company. His SSL activity culminated in the development, commissioning and research use of a 256-channel whole-head MEG system (complete with a special magnetic shielded room) then the largest in the world.

In 1995 Hisashi was appointed Professor at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT), and organized there the Applied Electronics Laboratory of KIT, which he then headed. The objective of this group has been to develop various measurement technologies for biomagnetism, applied physics and other industrial applications. Hisashi’s and the group’s major success was the completion and industrialization of a 160-channel whole-head MEG system² for medical research and diagnostics, which found use internationally, both in the US and in Europe.

For his achievements Hisashi received the New Technology Development Award of the “Japan Society of Medical and Biological Engineering, Science News”.

As his close collaborator, Gen Uehara, put it, “at SSL and KIT, Hisashi lead many young common researchers to achieve uncommon results, and eventually educated them to be next generation leaders in biomagnetism.” His premature departure leaves a deep void which will be difficult to fill.

¹MITI is the acronym of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
²Spun-off to the Eagle Technology Corporation, Inc., and to the Yokogawa Electric Corp.

Gert Eilenberger Passed away at 74

 January 14, 2011 (PO2). German theoretical physicist, Prof. Gert Eilenberger, passed away on November 21st, 2010, after a severe short illness. His rather sudden departure at 74 came as a sad surprise to his colleagues. He has been well-known to the superconductivity community as the originator of Eilenberger equations, which are applicable to BCS-like superconductors. These equations are a simplification of Gor’kov equations and are useful especially for superconducting alloys (1968).

Gert Eilenberger was born in 1936 in Hamburg, got his Ph.D. in 1961 under the well-known Friedrich Hund, and the habilitation (D.Sc.) in 1965, both at Göttingen. Soon after a postdoctoral stint at Cornell (1965-1967) he became affiliated with the Cologne University and was appointed full professor in 1970.

Eilenberger made significant contributions both to superconductivity, and to nonlinear dynamics. For over 30 years he was active in the Research Center Jülich (KFA later FZJ, Jülich, Germany) and founded there the present “Institute of Quantum Theory of Materials”. His activity included not only purely scientific work, but also various leading roles in the FZJ Senate, an advisory role at the DFG, the German equivalent of NSF (the US National Science Foundation), was Chairman of the Board of Europhysics Letters, member of the Academy of Sciences of NRW (Northrhine-Westphalia), etc. As a DFG advisor he was particularly helpful in supporting effective reorganization of science in Dresden, East Germany, after the German reunification. Once officially retired from FZJ, he became also quite active and successful in the communal politics of the City of Jülich.

Gert was a very engaged and passionate colleague with a strong instinct for what is right and beneficial to the community. His colleagues and collaborators appreciated his deep and broad knowledge as well as his warm heart and sense of humor. For this Editor it was a special privilege to know him and be able to interact with, also in matters of FZJ science policy of 1990s.

Alex I. Braginski

W. James Carr Jr. Passed Away at 92

November 23, 2010 (HE52). On November 16th, 2010, Walter James (“Jim”) Carr, Jr., author of the first useful monograph on ac losses in superconducting composite conductors [1] and of many important contributions to the field of magnetism and applied superconductivity, passed away at 92 at home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

Jim was born on May 6, 1918 in Knob Noster, Missouri. He initially intended to be a journalist, but instead enrolled at the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla (now University of Missouri at Rolla), because of a full-tuition scholarship; in 1940 he graduated there with a BS in engineering. He then entered Stanford University, CA, studied with Frederic Terman and graduated with MSEE in 1942. Upon graduation he was recruited by the Westinghouse Research Laboratories (later R&D Center) in Pittsburgh to join the wartime effort and was involved in defense projects. After the war, Westinghouse sponsored his graduate studies at Carnegie Tech (Now Carnegie-Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, PA. He wanted to study physics to know the "why" behind the engineering. When told he was too valuable to lose from the lab while getting a PhD, he went over his boss's head and was approved for graduate study with the endorsement that this was exactly the reason why he should have been approved and supported. He graduated with a PhD in physics in 1951 under Frederick Seitz.

Jim spent all his active career of 43 years at Westinghouse and attained the highest non managerial rank of Consulting Scientist, a rare distinction in that organization. In 1987 Jim was elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow for his contributions to theories of magnetism, and for development of the theory of alternating current losses in composite superconductors. He also became Fellow of the American Physical Society. A seminar at the Department of Physics, University of Maryland, features annually a W. James Carr, Jr. memorial lecture.

This Editor first read an important paper on magnetic anisotropy authored by Jim back in 1950s; it strongly influenced my own work at the very beginning of my professional career. I was thus truly awed when meeting him in person and having the privilege of working on his side some twenty plus years later. Those of us who knew Jim well admired equally his sharp mind, impeccably logical reasoning and his most courteous gentle manners. He was a true gentleman. Even after his retirement he remained quite active professionally; his last paper was published only 3 years ago. Until very recently he could be often encountered at various professional conferences. His departure is a big loss; we’ll miss him…
Alex I. Braginski

¹W. J. Carr, Jr. AC-loss and Macroscopic Theory of Superconductors, Gordon and Breach, 1983 (second edition in 2001).

Michael Tinkham Passes Away at 82

Broad thinker advanced both the theoretical and experimental understanding of superconductivity November 23, 2010 (HE51). Below we reproduce the integral text of the Harvard University obituary included in their press release of November 5, 2010.

Michael "Mike" Tinkham, whose latest appointment was as the Rumford Research Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Research Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Department of Physics, passed away on November 4, 2010. He was 82 years old.

Born on February 23, 1928 in Green Lake County, Wisconsin, Tinkham earned his undergraduate degree at Ripon College in 1951 and his Master's and Ph.D. degrees, both in physics, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1951 and 1954 respectively. He also spent a year at the Clarendon Laboratory of Oxford as a postdoctoral fellow.

He joined the University of California, Berkeley in 1957, rising to full professor, and then left in 1966 for Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his career. Tinkham's research focused primarily on superconductivity, as captured in his classic text, Introduction to Superconductivity. In his later years he was active in studying the unique properties of materials when sample dimensions are reduced to the nanometer range.

In the Journal of Superconductivity, Tinkham's former student Christopher Lobb '80 (Ph.D., Applied Physics), wrote:

The opportunity to work with Mike ... was one of the greatest experiences of my life. As a researcher, Mike's rare combination of experimental and theoretical ability has kept him at the top of the field for decades. As a teacher, Mike worked constantly to make things understandable, and did so with enthusiasm and wit. Any success I've had since leaving his group has largely been due to what I learned from him ...

Tinkham's awards and honors included election to the National Academy of Sciences; the receipt of the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize; and the Fred E. Saalfeld Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Science in 2005.

January 15, 2010 (HE38).  Praveen Chaudhari, the prominent science manager and scientist, long time the IBM Vice-President of Science and lately Director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, prematurely passed away in the night of 12 January 2010.  During his long tenure at IBM, he contributed in a major way to superconductivity.

Of his many direct contributions, the seminal and most prominent one is the systematic investigation of critical current dependence upon the grain boundary angle in rare earth cuprates (YBCO). This resulted in thus far the most reliable and broadly used technology of high-Tc Josephson junctions used in SQUIDs, HTS voltage standards, etc.  Furthermore, the bicrystal work provided foundation for the experimental confirmation and investigations of d-wave pairing in cuprates. It also led to the development of the HTS coated conductor technology. Also, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), he supported superconducting materials research and participated in it.  The summary of his recent results and thoughts on the grain boundaries in cuprates is given in his plenary EUCAS 2009 talk pre-published in our Issue 11 (to appear in Superconductor Science and Technology 2010).  For his achievements, Chaudhari has been honored with a number of awards.  He was an APS Fellow and member of the US National Academy of Engineering.  We reproduce his photo dating a few years back.
 

Vitaly L. Ginzburg – Brief Obituary

November 10, 2009 (HE36). Vitaly L. Ginzburg, 93, the co-author of the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) phenomenological theory of superconductivity preceding the microscopic BCS theory, died on November 8, 2009, apparently due to cardiac arrest.

Ginzburg, born on October 4th, 1916, in Moscow, Russia, graduated with Ph.D. in 1940 and D. Sc. in 1942. At that time he worked at the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow. He made also significant contribution to astrophysics and to nuclear fusion, specifically the Soviet H- bomb. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003, essentially for the GL theory. Readers interested in Ginzburg’s personal story and his views should refer to his brief autobiography, and an interview he most recently gave the Physics World (IOP). We reproduce his relatively recent photo (2003).

Zdenek J. J. Stekly, Sc.D October 11, 1933-April 3, 2009

WAYLAND: Dr. Zdenek J. J. “John” Stekly, 75, succumbed on April 3, 2009 after a long battle with coronary heart disease.

He was born on October 11, 1933 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the son of the late Karel A. Stekly and Jindriska (Wolfstahl) Stekly.

Dr. Stekly was the beloved husband of Suzanne Gibbs Stekly of Wayland. He was the loving father of Susan Stekly Williams and her husband Stephen W. Williams of Framingham, Paul F. Stekly and his wife Ashby Free of Cave Creek, AZ and of the late J. Steven Stekly. He leaves 5 grandchildren, a niece and 2 nephews.

After escaping Nazi occupied Czechoslavia, Dr. Stekly relocated temporarily to England before moving to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil where he spent the majority of his youth. Accepted into MIT at the age of sixteen, Dr Stekly completed his studies, the first in his class, receiving a BS in Mechanical Engineering, and a Masters in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in 1955. In 1959 he received his Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering.

After working for AVCO Everett Research Lab, Dr. Stekly worked as chairman of Magnetic Corporation of America, specializing in the production of superconducting magnets for use in MRI Scanners, Maglev research, Dept of Defense and the Dept of Energy.

A pioneer in superconductivity applications, Dr Stekly developed the ‘Stekly Stability Criterion’ which defines the maximum efficient operating capacity of superconducting wire.

Inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 1981, Dr. Stekly was also a member of the American Physical Society and the New England Council. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the FSH Society, Inc (Muscular Dystrophy). He belonged to the Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity.

At the request of the family, there will be no services at this time. Private services will be held for the family at a later date. For those who desire, gifts in his memory may be sent to the FSH Society Inc., 64 Grove St, Watertown, MA 02472. (IEEE CSC)

Masaki Suenaga - Feb. 13, 2009
Masaki Suenaga of Bellport, a retired award-winning scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory and an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, died Feb. 13 at age 71.

Dr. Suenaga received the IEEE Council on Superconductivity Awards For Contributions in the Field Of Applied Superconductivity during the 2008 Applied Superconductivity Conference, which was held last September in Chicago, IL. After receiving his Award, Dr. Suenaga said, "I feel fortunate that I've been able to do work that I like and that my research has resulted in useful technologies."

Suenaga's study of the superconductor niobium-tin helped to lay the groundwork for the first high-temperature superconductor power transmission cable system. That system, installed last year by the Long Island Power Authority in Holbrook, allows for the use of far less cable to conduct many times more power than more traditional systems.

Born in Shimonoseki, Japan, Suenaga moved to the United States after high school, and attended the University of California at Berkeley. There, he earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering in 1962, a master's degree in engineering in 1964, and a doctorate in metallurgy in 1969.
Yoko Suenaga, his wife, said her husband loved reading, studying and researching everything. "For instance," she said, "before we'd go to Italy or Spain, he'd borrow books and study their history and culture ... He was devoted to research, a never-ending job ... his whole life."
Suenaga was diagnosed with leukemia about two years ago, and retired from Brookhaven Lab about that time, his wife said, but he maintained office space at the lab, and continued to work three days a week as a guest scientist.

He first joined Brookhaven Lab in 1969 as an assistant metallurgist, moving up through higher positions over the years until he became senior metallurgist in 1983. He was an adjunct professor of material sciences at Stony Brook, and was honored in November by the lab with the title of Senior Scientist Emeritus.

Diane Greenberg, a lab spokeswoman said in a statement after his death, "The title is given to BNL retired scientists ... who have made particularly noteworthy contributions to the Laboratory's reputation as a world-class scientific institution."

In addition to his wife, of Bellport, he is survived by his mother, Aiko Suenaga of Shimonoseki; two sons, Ken of Yokohoma, Japan, and Ben of Manhattan; and two grandsons.

Suenaga was to be buried in Japan this week.
A memorial service is tentatively planned for next month on Long Island.
Source: Newsday, 21 February 2009

Hiromi Hirabayashi 1934–2008

Hiromi Hirabayashi, a leading figure and professor emeritus of KEK, passed away on 11 April 2008. He was an internationally renowned pioneer in the field of applied superconductivity and cryogenics for high-energy physics.

Hirabayashi was born in Gifu Prefecture, renowned for the Shirakawa-go world heritage site. He was educated in nuclear engineering at the graduate school of Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he gained his PhD in 1966, before becoming a research associate at the Institute of Nuclear Study at the University of Tokyo. He worked on preparations for the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics, or KEK, now the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, in particular in developing a hydrogen bubble chamber, essential for high-energy physics experiments in Japan. At the same time he established cryogenics – the necessary basic engineering – as a new academic discipline in Japan, and contributed to the development of applied superconductivity and cryogenics in collaboration with Japanese industry.

Moving as an associate professor to KEK when it was set up in 1971, Hirabayashi became a key person in the development of the KEK 1 m bubble chamber. From 1979, as professor, he led the construction of the primary proton and secondary (kaon and pion) beam lines at the KEK 12 GeV proton synchrotron. With excellent foresight, he advocated the importance of applied superconductivity and cryogenic engineering for accelerator science at the energy frontier of particle physics and was able to develop these areas through his strong leadership. His activities in these fields extended internationally through the developments of a superconducting secondary beam line at KEK, superconducting magnets for the TRISTAN project, a challenging 10 T dipole magnet for future accelerators, and collaborations on superconducting magnet development for the Superconducting Super Collider project, the g-2 experiment at Brookhaven, the WASA experiment at Uppsala University and the LHC project at CERN. He made Japanese superconducting magnet technologies for accelerator and particle physics highly appreciated throughout the world.

Hirabayashi went on to become head of the Experiment Management Division, head of the Cryogenics Center, and director of the Applied Research Laboratory at KEK. In 1995 he was invited to head the Safety and Environment Research Center at the National Institute for Fusion Science, where he used his extensive experience and knowledge to advise on the construction of the Large Helical Device.

He contributed to several boards and committees, as a member of the international cryogenic engineering committee in 1990–1999, chairman of the cryogenic society of Japan in 1992–1994, and a member and chairperson of the superconductivity and cryogenics panel of the international committee for future accelerators in 1987–1995. He was also the Asian editor of Cryogenics from 1987–1996. His exceptional work in the field was recognized with the IEEE Award for Continuing and Significant Contributions Page 2 of 2 in the Field of Applied Superconductivity and the special award for superconducting technology from the Society of Non-Traditional Technology.

After retirement in 1998, with a view to the environment and energy saving, Hirabayashi highlighted the need for the "convergence of liquid hydrogen and superconducting technology". His ideas for future society and technology leave an important legacy.

Hirabayashi’s most important contribution was to devote energy to train the next generation to work in the fields of superconductivity and cryogenics and the development of these technologies. He trained many young scientists who now work actively in accelerator science and particle physics.

Hirabayashi’s sudden death has been received with deep sadness not only by people in Japan but worldwide.

Takakazu Shintomi and Akira Yamamoto, KEK.