Professor of Theoretical Physics Mikhail Katsnelson receives Spinoza Prize 2013
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) announced today that FOM workgroup leader Prof.dr. Mikhail Katsnelson will be awarded the Spinoza Prize 2013. According to his colleagues, the prize is richly deserved: "He stands out above all other theoreticians in solid state physics." Katsnelson is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Institute for Molecules and Materials (IMM) of Radboud University Nijmegen. He is one of the most frequently cited authors in his field. His publications on graphene alone have been cited more than 12.000 times.
The Spinoza Prize is the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. NWO gives the prize of 2.5 million euros to Dutch researchers who rank among the best in the world.
Katsnelson (Magnitogorsk, 1957) is one of the most cited and best-known theoreticians in solid state physics worldwide. He is the leading theoretician on graphene and has co-authored the most important publications on this two-dimensional form of carbon, for which the discoverers, prof.dr. Andre Geim and prof.dr. Konstantin Novoselov, received the Nobel Prize in 2010. In his Nobel Lecture, Andre Geim said, "Our rapid progress would be impossible without Misha Katsnelson, who provided us with all the theoretical help an experimentalist can only dream of."
Authoritative in many areas
But Misha Katsnelson has not limited himself to a single subject. He has done important work in areas such as the theory of magnetism, exchange interactions between electrons and spin dynamics. According to FOM board member and workgroup leader Prof.dr. Theo Rasing, it is extraordinary that Katsnelson has made important contributions to so many areas of physics. "His early work on magnetism has become standard in the field, and his work on strongly correlated electrons is of great importance as well." Rasing received the Spinoza prize 2008 for his research into the effect of light on magnetism. He used the award to fund research into the theoretical foundations of his experiments. Katsnelson became co-supervisor of the PhD project. This was a successful collaboration: "Misha’s insights and models in spin dynamics brought our work to a higher level," explains Rasing.
Adventurous, fundamental questions
Katsnelson wants to use the Spinoza Prize for an ‘adventurous, but responsible’ research agenda. "I want to tackle a number of fundamental problems in physics. Funding for this type of research is usually impossible to find, but the Spinoza Prize gives you the freedom to do this. Whether or not it will succeed is the question. Of course, I won't assign a PhD student to a project that is too risky; these are the careers of young people for which I am responsible. But with a 70% chance of success, I will take the risk."