Nottingham Prize

Dipl. Phys. Daniël Schwarz has obtained the 2012 Nottingham Prize at the Physical Electronics Conference in Dallas (USA). This is a very important achievement as this prize actually is the most prestigious one in the area of physics and chemistry of surfaces and interfaces.

The Nottingham Prize was originally established in 1966 from contributions given in memory of Professor Wayne B. Nottingham of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by his many friends and associates. The prize, currently consisting of a certificate and $1,000, is awarded to the best student paper presented at the conference. This prize represents a seminal honor since many Nottingham winners have gone on to become leaders in the field of surface science.

Former winners include famous names like:

Ward Plummer, Henry Weinberg, Wilson Ho, Ruud Tromp, Thomas Michely,Joost Frenken, Georg Rosenfeld, Alpha N'Diaya and many others since the late 1960's.

Daniël had to compete with 13 preselected fellow contestants. On June 5^th he was elected as the unique winner based on the presentation of his PhD work, which deals with the thermodynamics and direct visualization of nucleation during the initial growth of molecular (BDA) layers on Cu(001). He will defend his PhD thesis later this year.