Max Born Medal and Prize recipients
Recipients of the Max Born Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society.
For 2025, the IOP will send the three top nominations to the German Physical Society and its awards committee will select the winner.
The award consists of a silver medal and comes with a prize of €3,000 and a certificate.
2024
Professor Ingrid Mertig
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
For her outstanding contributions to the field of spintronics made possible by her pioneering work combining ab initio electronic structure theory with the analysis of spin- and magnetisation-dependent transport properties.
2023
Professor Stefan Söldner-Rembold
University of Manchester
For exceptional contributions to particle physics, in particular neutrino physics and high-energy collider physics, and for leadership of large international science collaborations.
2022
Claudia Felser
Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Physik fester Stoffe
2021
Professor Hiranya Peiris
University College London
For outstanding contributions to the field of cosmology, and in particular for creating new interdisciplinary links between cosmology and high energy physics.
2020
Professor Anna Köhler
Universität Bayreuth
2019
Professor Michael Coey
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
For the understanding and description of the magnetic properties of novel magnetic materials, including amorphous alloys, magnetic oxides, half-metals and hard magnetic materials, and for pioneering their use in devices.
2018
Professor Angel Rubio
Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg
For his sustained leadership in computational solid-state physics and for his predictions of materials properties at nanometer lengthscales and in low dimensions.
2017
Professor Carlos Frenk
Institute for Computational Cosmology, University of Durham
Through his ground-breaking numerical simulations, Professor Frenk has played a major role in proposing and establishing the Cold Dark Matter model, the current standard paradigm for the formation and evolution of all cosmic structure.
2016
Professor Christian Pfleiderer
Technische Universität München
For the discovery of skyrmion lattices in chiral magnets and their manipulation by electric currents.
2015
Professor Andrea Cavalleri
University of Oxford/Universität Hamburg
For his pioneering studies of the photo-induced phase transition in correlated electronic materials.
2014
Professor Dr Alexander I. Lichtenstein
University of Oxford/Universität Hamburg
For his outstanding contributions to the theory of magnetism and electronic correlations in real materials.
2013
Professor Max Klein
University of Liverpool
For fundamental experimental contributions to our understanding of the structure of protons using Deep Inelastic Scattering.
2012
Professor Martin B. Plenio
Universität Ulm / Imperial College London
For his ground-breaking contributions to the theory of entanglement and its applications which have stimulated and guided the development of practical realisations of quantum information processing and the control of quantum dynamics.
2011
Professor Phillip Woodruff
University of Warwick
For his pioneering work in the development of experimental techniques for quantitative surface structure determination and their use in providing new insights into a range of surface phenomena.
2010
Professor Simon White
Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics
For his contributions to cosmology, galaxy development and the theory of Lambda Cold Dark Matter.
2009
Professor Robin Devenish
Oxford University
For his key role in determining the structure function of the proton and thereby extracting quark and gluon density distributions, which has led to substantial progress in the understanding of quantum chromodynamics.
2008
Professor Hagen Kleinert
Freie Universität Berlin
For his outstanding theoretical contributions to a wide range of fields, including condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and statistical physics.
2007
Alan Martin
Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Durham University
For his pioneering work in the understanding of the strong interaction, and particularly for his theoretical work on the internal structure of the proton.
2006
Dieter Bimberg
Technische Universität Berlin
For his excellent scientific contributions concerning the development, the understanding and the application of semiconductor nanostructures.
2005
Michael Finnis
Queen's University Belfast
For his contributions to materials physics, in particular the structure and thermodynamics of interfaces.
2004
Matthias Scheffler
2003
Brian Foster
University of Bristol
For his outstanding contributions to the study of quarks and leptons, in particular in experiments carried out at DESY, and for his visionary leadership of particle physics.
2002
Professor Siegfried Dietrich
Max Plank Institute for Metals Research
Professor Dietrich did very pioneering research in the area of surface critical phenomena, extending the field-theoretical version of renormalisation group theory to anisotropic and inhomogeneous situations as encountered at free surfaces and interfaces.
2001
Volker Heine
2000
Rolf-Dieter Felst
1999
John Bourke Dainton
1998
Gerhard Abstreiter
1997
Robin Marshall
1996
Jürgen Mlynek
1995
Michael H Key
1994
Wolfgang Demtrsder
1993
David Colin Hanna
1992
Joachim Heintze
1991
Gilbert G Lonzarich
1990
Ernst O Goebel
1989
Robin Williams
1988
Peter Armbruster
1987
Cyril Hilsum
1986
Josef Stuke
1985
George Richard Isaak
1984
Amand Faessler
1983
Andrew Keller
1982
Wolfgang Kaiser
1981
Cyril Domb
1980
Helmut Faissner
1979
John Brian Taylor
1978
Herbert Walther
1977
Walter Eric Spear
1976
Hermann Haken
1975
Trevor Simpson Moss
1974
Walter Greiner
1973
Roger Arthur Cowley