Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\nAllan MacDonald is the first Canadian to win the Kavli prize in nanoscience since it was created in 2008.The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters\/Supplied<\/p>\n
Dr. MacDonald, 74, is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin where he has long pursued theoretical work related to the quantum behaviour of materials.<\/p>\n
He shares the award with Eva Andrei of Rutgers University and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All three are credited for uncovering how the quantum properties of materials that are organized in two-dimensional layers, such as graphene, can change drastically when the layers are slightly rotated relative to each other.<\/p>\n
For example, in certain materials and angles, the layers can become superconductors, allowing electricity to flow without resistance. (The word Twistronics was later coined to capture the idea that a twist in the layers can change the electronic properties of the material.)<\/p>\n
Born and educated in Canada, Dr. MacDonald hails from Antigonish, N.S., and received his PhD at the University of Toronto in 1978. He then spent nearly a decade working at the National Research Council of Canada before moving to the United States.<\/p>\n
He is the first Canadian to win the Kavli prize in nanoscience since it was created in 2008.<\/p>\n
The nanoscience prize, worth US$1-million, is one of three established by Fred Kavli, a Norwegian-American tech entrepreneur and philanthropist. It is bestowed annually by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo alongside its equivalent prizes for astrophysics and neuroscience.<\/p>\n
Dr. MacDonald, who has previously been recognized with other major awards, including the Wolf Prize in Physics, said the Kavli nanoscience prize has a special resonance because, \u201cit specifically recognizes the area in which I work.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview from Nova Scotia, Dr. MacDonald said a lack of opportunity in his field during the 1980s forced him to look southward for an academic position, taking him first to Indiana and then Texas. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had to go to the States to get somebody to give me a chance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He praised the strong quantum materials community that has emerged in Canada since then \u2013 a community he continues to engage with, including as an adviser to the long-running quantum materials program supported by the Toronto-based research organization CIFAR. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of Allan\u2019s unique qualities that makes him especially effective as a scientist is his ability to connect with experimentalists,\u201d said Joshua Folk, a quantum materials researcher at the University of British Columbia who has collaborated with Dr. MacDonald. \u201cHe exudes a real enthusiasm for discussing measurement puzzles, especially when data are not consistent with existing theories.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allan MacDonald, a Canadian physicist based in the United States who is best known for helping to usher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,46,370,141],"class_list":["post-489710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}