Pierre Gilles De Gennes Prizes
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University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
Received the 2024 de Gennes Prize for his many contributions to the theory of liquid crystals and
soft matter. He has conducted research on a wide range of mostly soft-matter subjects including
phase transitions and critical phenomena; broken-symmetry hydrodynamics; micro-rheology;
lipid and elastic membranes along with their lamellar phases. He is best known, for (1)
establishing an equivalence between smectic liquid crystals and superconductors and (2) for
predicting the existence of the Twist-grain-boundary (TGB) phase and its analogy with the
vortex phase of type II superconductors. These predictions where quickly identified
experimentally, preparing the way for investigating several other kinds of grain-boundary phases
(for example in chiral smectic-C’s). In collaboration with experimentalists, he provided a
theoretical framework for nematic order in colloids consisting of spherical particles dispersed in
a nematic fluid. This work has inspired one of the most vibrant sectors of liquid-crystal research.
He and Paul Chaikin wrote the book “Principles of Condensed matter Physics” that is widely
used in graduate-level courses.
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University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Received the 2022 De Gennes Prize for recognition of his creative explorations and breakthrough contributions to the understanding of soft matter, in particular, liquid crystals, liquid crystal-colloidal and liquid crystal-polymer hybrid systems.
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Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Received the 2020 De Gennes Prize for his outstanding contributions to liquid crystal science and technology, the discovery of the antiferroelectricity in liquid crystals and the polar phases formed by achiral bent-core mesogens, both opened completely new directions in liquid crystal research and inspired numerous scientists from physics, chemistry, and engineering, from theory, experiment, and applications. His scientific achievement and continued leadership have made significant contributions to the advancement of the liquid crystal community over the world.
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University of York, UK
Received the 2018 De Gennes Prize for his pioneer research in organic synthesis of mesogens, contribution to technological applications of liquid crystals, and extraordinary scientific leadership in liquid crystal societies for over the past thirty years. His discovery of new states of matters allowed the unification of the physics of phase transitions in liquid crystals with those of superconductors. Other outstanding achievements in the self-assembly and self-organization processes of complex fluids are truly multidisciplinary in nature and contribute to both pure and applied science over the world.
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University of Colorado, USA
Received the 2016 De Gennes Prize for his many seminal contributions and continued leadership in liquid crystal science and technology for over four decades.His scientific interest and achievements embrace all imaginable subfields of liquid crystals from basic to applied and from physics to biology. His seminal contributions in ferroelectric liquid crystals, free standing films, bent-core systems, lyotropic lamellar phases and DNA-based liquid crystals are just a few of his research record that arguably inspired innumerable research scientists and engineers all over the world.
