Congratulations to Prof. Bill Barnes who has been awarded the Thomas Young Prize and Medal 2019 from the Institute of Physics. The award is made for distinguished contributions to optics, including work related to physics outside the visible region.
Bill was awarded this prize for his outstanding contributions to the development of nanophotonics, especially in plasmonics and nanoscale light-molecule interactions. He was the first to show that monomolecular organic layers (Langmuir-Blodgett layers) are optically biaxial- in doing so he established a new polarization conversion technique that became a powerful way to analyse liquid crystal materials and devices.
Bill’s present research includes developing a new all-molecular pathway to making nanophotonic materials and leading research to use confined light fields to radically alter the energy levels of ensembles of molecules. Ongoing research includes band-engineering the optical properties of carbon-based materials and manipulating the charge and energy transport of 2D molecular materials, including photosynthetic materials.
Thomas Young was an English polymath noted for having established the wave theory of light via his famous double-slit experiment, and for what is now known as Young’s modulus, which relates the stress in a body to its associated strain. He also made contributions to the theory of colour vision, first coming up with the hypothesis that our perception of colour depends on three kinds of receptors sensitive to different wavelengths of light, and to the understanding of surface tension.
All award winners will be celebrated at the Institute’s annual Awards Dinner, to be held this year on 19 November at the Royal Lancaster London Hotel, where they will be presented by the President with their medal, a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.