Dr. Sven Friedemann has been awarded the Brian Pippard Prize for "internationally leading work on high-pressure studies of superconductors”. He is internationally recognized for his experimental studies on superconductors under high pressure. His pioneering work has provided crucial insights into high-temperature hydride superconductors, cuprates, model transition-metal dichalcogenides, and correlated metals.
Sven’s group was the first in the UK to probe hydride superconductivity. Experimental studies of hydride superconductors are extremely challenging owing to the large pressures required. He has developed diamond-anvil pressure cells for in-situ structural, electrical, and spectroscopic studies at pressures up to 2 megabar including in high magnetic fields and at low temperatures. With his group, he has discovered high-temperature superconductivity in the clathrate hydride La₄H₂₃ with a Tc of 95 K and provided critical evidence for the diffusive nature of hydrogen in lanthanum hydrides at extreme pressures. His work on cuprates and transition-metal dichalcogenides has provided decisive evidence on the interactions between superconductivity and charge order.
The Brian Pippard Prize is awarded annually by the Institute of Physics Superconductivity Group for a scientist working in the UK who has made a significant contribution to superconductivity in recent years. Brian Pippard (1920-2008) was a pioneer in superconductivity research working at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.