Mohammad Hamidian Ph.D. ’11 was named the 2016 winner of the Lee-Osheroff-Richardson Science Prize for his discovery of new forms of electronic matter at the nanoscale and at extreme low temperatures, according to a University press release.
The award, sponsored by Oxford Instruments NanoScience, promotes and recognizes the work of young scientists in physical sciences research, according to the Oxford Instruments website.
Hamidian will receive $8,000 and the opportunity to attend the 2016 American Physical Society conference later this month, according to the website.
Hamidian is particularly commended for his research in the technology of scanning tunneling microscopy that allow operation at ultra-low temperatures, the University said.
At Cornell, Hamidian worked under Prof. J.C. Séamus Davis, physics, who he said provided him with “excellent mentoring and guidance to ask the significant questions in science, develop the necessary tools to explore those issues and think deeply about their implications.”
Hamidian invented techniques that allowed him to search for states of electronic quantum matter that only occur at extremely low temperatures, according to the University.
Hamidian said he was honored to be awarded the prize, adding that his time at Cornell helped set the foundation for his future work.
“I’m still an experimental physicist and Cornell is where I did my graduate studies that set me off on that path,” he said.
Hamidian currently works as a research associate, managing Harvard University’s branch of the Hoffman Laboratory. He said he studies electron system interactions that give rise to new phases of electronic matter.
“The electrons reorganize themselves in ways that we haven’t always been able to predict,” he said. “So a lot of my research involves trying to understand the underlying mechanisms for those properties and those electronic organizations.”