BYLINE: Lea E. Radick
Newswise — The Foresight Institute is recognizing Hla for his research on molecular machines and motors, atomically precise rotation of rare-earth complexes and analysis of a single atom with X-rays.
Saw Wai Hla of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory was named by the Foresight Institute as the winner of the 2024 Feynman Prize in nanotechnology in the experiment category. The Foresight Institute is a leading nanotechnology public interest organization.
The award recognizes Hla’s work to develop more complex molecular machines and motors, atomically precise rotation of rare-earth complexes and, most recently, the analysis of a single atom with X-rays.
His research in all of these areas could lead to new technologies for microelectronics, quantum computing, medical devices, batteries” target=”_blank”>battery development and more.
“I’m extremely honored to receive the Feynman Prize in nanotechnology from the Foresight Institute. It’s a wonderful recognition of my work and that of my colleagues at Argonne and Ohio University.” — Saw Wai Hla, Argonne physicist
A physicist at the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne, Hla is a leading researcher in the areas of single atom and molecule manipulation with scanning tunneling microscopy, single-molecule spintronics and molecular machines on surfaces. He is also a professor in the physics department at Ohio University.
“I’m extremely honored to receive the Feynman Prize in nanotechnology from the Foresight Institute,” Hla says. “It’s a wonderful recognition of my work and that of my colleagues at Argonne and Ohio University.”
Hla has published over 100 articles and has given more than 160 invited talks in 23 countries. He has also served on numerous national and international boards and has been a proposal reviewer and panelist for DOE, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and European funding agencies. His research has benefited from the use of the CNM and the Advanced Photon Source, another DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne.
Beginning in 1993, the Foresight Institute has annually awarded the Feynman Prize to researchers whose recent work has most advanced the achievement of renown physicist Richard Feynman’s goal for nanotechnology: the construction of atomically precise macro products, devices and machines. The Feynman Prize is recognized in the field of nanotechnology for identifying future Nobel laureates; Sir Fraser Stoddart (2007 Feynman Prize winner) and David Baker (2004 Feynman Prize winner) both went on to become Nobel Prize winners in 2016 and 2024, respectively.
The prize includes a $5,000 award and an invitation to an award ceremony, held Dec. 7 in San Francisco. Hla’s work will also receive public acknowledgment and support.
His research was funded by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
About Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials
The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit https://science.osti.gov/User-Facilities/User-Facilities-at-a-Glance.
About the Advanced Photon Source
The U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world’s most productive X-ray light source facilities. The APS provides high-brightness X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use the APS to produce over 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. APS scientists and engineers innovate technology that is at the heart of advancing accelerator and light-source operations. This includes the insertion devices that produce extreme-brightness X-rays prized by researchers, lenses that focus the X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes the way the X-rays interact with samples being studied, and software that gathers and manages the massive quantity of data resulting from discovery research at the APS.
This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.
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