29.07.2022  11:30

Giacomo Ghiringhelli receives 2022 Kamerlingh-Onnes Prize

Award to his RIXS experiments on cuprate superconductors


Giacomo Ghiringhelli, professor in physics at the Politecnico di Milano, has received another major recognition as one of the winners of the 2022 Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes Prize, for his pioneering resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments on cuprate superconductors.

The prestigious Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes Prize takes its name from the person who discovered superconductivity and is awarded in recognition of exceptional experimental results able to shed light on the profound nature of superconductivity. The prize is associated with the M2S (Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity) international conference and is sponsored by the Elsevier editorial group through the journal Physica C - Superconductivity and its Applications

Ghiringhelli shared the 2022 Prize with colleagues of the highest calibre: professor Bernhard Keimer (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany) and professor Pengcheng Dai (Rice University, Houston, USA).

The three scientists were awarded for their exceptional experimental work on spin and charge correlations in high temperature superconductors using x-ray and neutron scattering.

The award ceremony took place on Tuesday 19 July 2022 in Vancouver, Canada.

The prize recognises how the RIXS technique, developed and used by Ghiringhelli and his collaborators over the last 20 years, has led to the unequivocal confirmation of the presence of the spin and charge order in curate superconductors. The fact that this short-range order is closely linked to superconductivity is an essential ingredient in the theory of non-conventional superconductivity.