Rumford Medal winner 2018
Professor Ian Walmsley FRS
The Rumford Medal 2018 is awarded to Professor Ian Walmsley FRS for pioneering work in the quantum control of light and matter on ultrashort timescales, especially the invention and application of new techniques for characterization of quantum and classical light fields.
Professor Walmsley will be awarded a medal of silver gilt, accompanied by a gift of £2,000 at the Royal Society's Anniversary Day in November 2018.
The award
The award was established following a donation by Benjamin Thompson FRS (PDF), Count Rumford of the Holy Roman Empire, an American-born former soldier, spy, statesman and scientist who would go on to found the Royal Institution. The first award was made in 1800.
The Rumford Medal is now awarded annually for outstanding research in the field of the physics of materials.
The next round of nominations opens in November 2018.
Past winners
Professor Ortwin Hess was awarded the Rumford Medal in 2016 for his pioneering work in active nano-plasmonics and optical metamaterials with quantum gain.
Professor Jeremy Baumberg FRS was awarded the Rumford Medal in 2014 for his outstanding creativity in nanophotonics, investigating many ingenious nanostructures, both artificial and natural to support novel plasmonic phenomena relevant to Raman spectroscopy, solar cell performance and meta-materials applications.
Roy Taylor was awarded the Medal in 2012 for his outstanding contributions to tunable ultrafast lasers and nonlinear fibre optics, including fibre Raman, soliton and supercontinuum laser sources, which translated fundamental discoveries to practical technology.
See full list of all past winners of the Rumford Medal.