Professor of Physics James N. Eckstein has been awarded the 2012 Bernd T. Matthias Prize, a triennial award that recognizes innovative contributions to the material aspects of superconductivity. Eckstein shared the 2012 Prize with colleagues Ivan Bozovic and Dirk Johrendt. Eckstein was cited for his "pioneering and sustained contributions to the novel synthesis and engineering of superconducting materials."
A distinguished condensed matter experimentalist, Eckstein is best known for his technical expertise in creating high-quality oxide thin films to study fundamental physical properties of cuprate superconductors and magnetic materials. His pioneering development of atomic layer-by-layer molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) has enabled research on complex materials and atomic scale heterojunctions with new levels of precision and sophistication.
His group has developed some of the best planar tunnel junctions ever made using single crystal oxide barrier and superconductor layers. These have revealed unusual behavior of the superconducting state in these materials at ordered interfaces. His work has also been central to research on superconductors using measurements of angle-resolved photoemission and terahertz conductivity.
Most recently, Eckstein has employed MBE, as well as nanoscale lithography and advanced etching methods, to create Josephson devices based on single crystal superconducting heterostructures aimed at reducing decoherence in superconducting qubits by reducing material defects. His group is also studying novel two-dimensional systems that couple superconducting electrodes separated by topological insulators. Such materials are of great technological importance as potential decoherence-protected qubits for quantum information processing.
Eckstein received his bachelor's degree in physics from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, in 1973, and his doctorate in physics from Stanford University in 1978. He joined the Department of Physics at Illinois as a professor in 1997. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the holder of six US patents.
The Bernd T. Matthias Prize is sponsored by the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston. The award was presented to Eckstein at the Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity Conference, July 29–August 3, in Washington DC.