Fritz London Memorial Prize

2025 London Prize winners are announced!

The Fritz London Memorial Prize Selection Committee is proud to announce the winners of this year’s Fritz London Memorial Prize (in alphabetic order):

Robert Hallock: “For his many innovative achievements in the physics of liquid helium films and his pioneering work on supertransport in solid helium-4, which includes the paradigm-changing discovery of giant isochoric compressibility.”

John Saunders: “In recognition of his pioneering research on topological and strongly correlated quantum fluids and solids in reduced dimensions, enabled by his development of cryogenic and measurement technology to open research opportunities spanning quantum materials to fundamental physics.”

Ali Yazdani: “For cutting-edge discoveries of the interplay between correlated phases and superconductivity in cuprates, heavy fermion systems, and graphene using advanced low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy.”

The awards will be presented during the 30th International Low Temperature Physics Conference (August 7-13, 2025).

The members of the 2025 Selection Committee are: Pertti Hakonen (Chair), Yuichi Okuda (past Chair), Eva Andrei, Laura Greene, Hans Mooij, and Richard Haley (representative of IUPAP C5).                                                  

Background Information and Previous Winners: 

Fritz London (1900-1954) is known for his pioneering contributions to theoretical chemistry and physics. He was a faculty member at Duke in 1939-1954. 

The Fritz London Prize was created to recognize scientists who made outstanding contributions to the advances of the field of Low Temperature Physics. The prize was first awarded in 1957 and is presented every three years at the international Low Temperature conference. 

The bylaws used by the Fritz London Prize committee were first drafted in 1972 by John Bardeen, winner of two Nobel Prizes and of the '62 F. London Prize. John Bardeen also gave his portion of the Nobel Prize to Duke University to establish the endowment, which funds both the Prize and the annual Fritz London lecture. Additional funds intended solely for the London Prize were gifted by Horst Meyer, a long time faculty member at Duke. The prize is also partially supported by Oxford Instruments. 

The members of the Advisory Board for the prize are: Giorgio Frossati, Steven Girvin, Yasunobu Nakamura, Wolfgang Ketterle, and Jukka Pekola. 

The Trustees of the prize are Ken Brown, Moses H.W. Chan and Gleb Finkelstein. 

The previous winners of the Fritz London prize were: