Mildred S. Dresselhaus to receive 2013 Von Hippel Award for carbon science
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receive 2013 Von Hippel Award for carbon science
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he 2013 Von Hippel Award, the Materials Research Society’s highest honor, will be presented to Mildred S. Dresselhaus, Emerita Institute Professor and Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dresselhaus is being recognized for “her pioneering contributions to the fundamental science of carbon-based and other low electron density materials, her leadership in energy and science policy, and her exemplary mentoring of young scientists.” Dresselhaus will present her award talk at the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston on Dec. 4, at 6:30 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton Boston Hotel. Dresselhaus has conducted research that covered a wide range of problems in the physics of solids with special attention to nanoscience, and carbon-based and other nanostructures of particular relevance to energy-related applications more recently. She made pioneering contributions to the study of semimetals and semiconductors, graphite and its intercalation compounds, fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, and nanostructured thermoelectrics. In the 1960s, she was among the first to use the newly invented laser in magneto-optics studies, an innovation that laid the groundwork for one of her signature accomplishments, the application of Raman spectroscopy to probe the electronic and vibrational response of carbon nanostructures. In her theoretical exploration of the electronic properties of graphene and single-walled carbon nanotubes, Dresselhaus developed an understanding of the unusual Raman spectra of these materials that arise from the interaction between electronic excitation and electron-phonon collisions. This understanding was used to make Raman
spectroscopy of graphene and nanotubes the most used technique for determining the properties of individual samples. In a landmark article co-authored with R. Saito, M. Fujita, and G. Dresselhaus (Appl. Phys. Rev. 60 [1992]; p. 2204), Mildred Dresselhaus predicted the electronic structure and density of states for all chiralities of carbon nanotubes (known at that time as graphene tubules) before they were measured and before many were discovered. This article and her work that followed are now the textbook formulation of carbon nanotubes that informs other studies in the field. While elemental carbon has been the subject of much of her work, Dresselhaus has made significant contributions to the nanotechnology of other materials as well, in particular nonstoichiometric inorganic compounds. Her specific interest is in changes in the properties of materials induced by nanostructuring and how these altered properties may be used in practical applications. Recognizing early on that meeting energy demand without damaging the environment is a major global challenge, Dresselhaus organized a special issue of Nature on energy that was the clarion call among scientists for new interdisciplinary science directions. In the early 2000s, she chaired a study on hydrogen for the Department of Energy’s O
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