Argonne scientist earns Francis M. Pipkin Award for work with radioactive atomic species and applications

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ARGONNE, Ill. (May 28, 2009) — U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory senior physicist Zheng-Tian Lu has received the 2009 Francis M. Pipkin Award of the American Physical Society.

The honor recognizes Lu for the development of techniques to laser cool and trap rare and radioactive atomic species, and for applications of these techniques ranging from trace isotope analysis to tests of fundamental symmetries.

The award was established in 1997 by the Topical Group on Precision Measurement and Fundamental Constants in memory of Francis M. Pipkin, a member of the topical group whose wide interests in physics included experiments in condensed matter, nuclear, high energy, and atomic, molecular and optical physics, always with a special interest in precision measurements.

The award honors exceptional research accomplishments by a young scientist in the interdisciplinary area of precision measurement and fundamental constants and to encourage the wide dissemination of the results of that research.

In addition to his duties at Argonne, Lu is a part-time professor in the physics department and Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago . He has been an American Physical Society member since 1988 and was elected a fellow in 2006.

Throughout his career, Lu has been developing novel techniques of laser manipulation and laser spectroscopy of atoms and applying these techniques to ultrasensitive trace analysis, studying nuclear structure and testing fundamental symmetries. For the development of the Atom Trap Trace Analysis method, he received both the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the DOE Office of Science Early Career Scientist and Engineer Award in 2000.

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For more information, please contact Brock Cooper (630/252-5565 or media@anl.gov) at Argonne.

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