Per Dahl Succumbed to Cancer

PO9 (May 16, 2012).  Belatedly, we learned that Per Dahl passed away in 2011.  Below we reproduce in full the obituary submitted by Peter Wanderer of Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Per Fridtjof Dahl, a physicist expert in superconducting accelerator magnets, artist, and historian of modern physics died on October 1, 2011 after a two-to-three year-long struggle with lung cancer.

Per Dahl was born at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., on August 1, 1932.  His parents were Odd Dahl, from Drammen, Norway, and Anna Augusta (Vesse), from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  Dahl was born while his father was working at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C.  In 1936, his father saw the war coming and decided to take his family back to Bergen, Norway.  He returned to Norway in 1937 to oversee science in Norway during the war. 

Dahl grew up in Bergen, Norway, from the age of 4 until he was 17.  He then came to the U.S. and served three years in the U.S. Army, including two years stationed on Guam in the Pacific.  Taking after his father, Dahl was interested in science and physics from an early age.  He studied science during his Army years, and after leaving the service he entered the University of Wisconsin, obtaining his Ph.D. in Physics in 1960.  His post-doctoral work was done at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Per Dahl joined the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in 1963.  He arrived at a time when superconductors were beginning to move from laboratory development to industrial production.  At this time, development of accelerator magnets using NbTi and Nb3Sn began.  Per became involved in the design of these magnets early in his BNL career and acquired a good understanding both of the materials and their use in magnets.  He put this knowledge to good use later in his BNL career when he became the principal person writing about magnets and superconductors for technically-oriented audiences.  This work also provided him with an opportunity to display his skills as an artist.  His drawing that shows all the critical components of a superconducting cable is still used in talks for visitors to Brookhaven. 

Per began working on the larger stage of the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) in 1987, where he continued work documenting the magnet program.  When the SSC effort moved from the design location, Berkeley, to the laboratory location in Texas, Per expanded his work to include both the documentation of the conventional construction effort and preparation of information in support of the SSC mission (e.g., publisher of the SSC News).

Following termination of the SSC project in 1993, Per moved to the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL).  During much of that time he was on leave to the Office of High Energy Physics, where he was Program Officer for a number of university grants.  He also consulted with BNL about the nascent RHIC magnet system.  He retired from LBNL in 1996 but kept contact with the lab through a visiting scientist appointment and work at the Office for the History of Science and Technology at UC-Berkeley until 2005.

Dahl is the author of numerous scientific papers and several books:  From Nuclear Transmutation to Nuclear Fission, 1932-1939 (Institute of Physics Publishing, Co., Bristol, England and Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2002); Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy (Institute of Physics Publishing, Co., UK, Bristol England and Philadelphia, PA, USA, 1999), which was featured in the NOVA TV-production, Hitler’s Sunken Secret, DOX Production, London, 2004; Flash of the Cathode Rays: A History of J.J. Thomson’s Electron (Institute of Physics Publishing, Co., UK, Bristol, England and Philadelphia, USA, 1997); Superconductivity: Its Historical Roots and Development from Mercury to the Ceramic Oxides (American Institute of Physics, New York, 1992); Ludvig Colding and the Conservation of Energy Principle: Experimental and Philosophical Contributions, The Sources of Science N. 104 (Johnson Reprint Corp., New York and London, 1972).

Throughout his life, Dahl was able to pursue his love for physics, art and his family.  While at Brookhaven, he was a president of the South Bay Art Association (1967-1968), and he was also the president of the Brookhaven National Laboratory Art Society for several years.  He was a fellow of the American Physical Society.

He is survived by his devoted wife of 45 years, Eleanor, and two sons: Erik (married to Christa), of Pebble Beach, CA; and Thomas (married to Jo) and two grandchildren, Emily and Alex, of Westford, MA. 

Peter Wanderer, Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY
Eleanor Dahl, Emeryville, CA
Erik J. Dahl, Pebble Beach, CA and Thomas F. Dahl, Westford, MA

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Akira Tonomura Passed Away at 70

May 2, 2012 (PO8); updated May 7, 2012 (PO8-1).  Akira Tonomura of Hitachi Central Research Laboratory died of pancreatic cancer early on May 2, 2012, at a hospital in Hidaka, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. He was 70. Tonomura was best known for developing electron holography for observing microscopic structures in matter using the wave nature of electrons and confirming the so-called Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect, the existence of which had long been disputed among physicists.  He was tipped as a future Nobel Prize winner for years.  The sad news above we cite after the online Kyodo News of May 2, 2012. 

Tonomura was born on April 25, 1942.  He graduated from Tokyo University (1965) and obtained his two doctoral degrees from Nagoya (Engineering, 1975) and Gakushuin (Philosophy/Physics) Universities.  Joined Hitachi in 1965 and performed part of his

Tonomura was Fellow of numerous societies of which we mention here the Japanese Society of Appl. Phys., APS (from 1999), the Microscopy Society of America, Eur. Phys. Soc., Institute of Physics (UK, 2007) and of AAAS (USA, 2007).  Of his many honors and awards we list here the Nishina Memorial Prize (1982), Asahi Prize (1987), Japan Academy Prize and Imperial Prize (1991), and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics (1999, USA).  He became Member of Science Council of Japan (2005), Foreign Associate of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science (2006), and Member of the Japan Academy in 2007.

Tonomura’s contributions to superconductivity started nearly a quarter of century ago when his group studied the AB effect and made the first single flux quantum observation by electron-holographic spectroscopy¹.  Subsequently, he and his group made real-time observations of vortex lattices in type II superconductors² by Lorentz microscopy, and published multiple contribution on studies of such lattices and flux pinning in   low- and high-T_c superconductors. The more complete overview of his numerous achievements in science can be found here.

¹T. Matsuda et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 62 2519 (1989).
²K. Harada et al., Nature, 360 51 (1992).

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February 2, 2012 (PO7).  Slovak scientist, Dr. Milan Polák, passed away on January 31st, 2012, after a severe short illness.  His rather sudden departure at 74 came as a sad surprise to his colleagues and co-workers in Slovakia and abroad.  He has been well-known to the superconductivity community through his active studies of electromagnetic properties of superconductors, superconducting magnets and devices, in particular on AC losses and related problems.

Milan Polák was born in 1937 in Strekov, finished university studies in 1960, got his Ph.D. in 1967 and the habilitation (D.Sc.) in 1989, both at Slovak Academy of Science (SAS) in Bratislava. From 1967

Polák made significant contributions to applied superconductivity, e.g., designed and tested NbTi coils for the generation of magnetic fields at industrial frequencies, AC loss measurements of superconductors and superconducting coils, development of low AC loss YBCO superconductors. He successfully managed several national and international research projects and published about 190 publications in international journals.

For 50 years he was active in the Institute Electrical Engineering of SAS and, to the end of his activity, liked the “hands on” experimental work in laboratory, which was a stimulating example also for much younger colleagues.  He was also as a member of several scientific boards and, as the director of IEE, was also involved in effective reorganization of the Institute of Electrical Engineering at the time of “political change”.   

Milan was a very creative colleague, and up to the end of his live stimulated others to useful activities.  His colleagues and collaborators appreciated his experience and knowledge as well as his friendship and sense for humour.  For this author it was a special privilege to spend with him the time of his last MT-22 conference (Sept. 2011) and also participate in experiments performed together during his last years.
P. Kováč
IEE SAS

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Antonio Barone Dies on December 4, 2011

December 10, 2012 (PO6).  Antonio Barone (AB) prematurely passed away on Dec 4th 2011 at the age of 72, after a one-year battle with cancer. He left behind his wife Sveva and his two sons, Alberto and Livio. Antonio was currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Napoli Federico II, where he had been teaching for about 40 years.

The initial research activity of AB was in the field of nuclear physics. In this context, almost 45 years ago, the Ge “Lithium drift” semiconductor detectors represented a novelty, due to the high energy resolution allowed by those devices. Superconductors stimulated new approaches to radiation detection and this motivated Antonio’s interests toward the superconductivity. In the 1967

The strong interaction of AB with the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Academy of Sciences, in Moscow, characterizes a long period of his research activity with a precious merging of theoretical and experimental aspects. All this body of work converged into the famous monograph on the “Physics and Applications of the Josephson Effect”, written in collaboration with Gianfranco Paternò in 1982. This became rapidly the reference text for the Josephson effect, as documented by thousands of citations and the fact it was translated into Russian, Japanese and Chinese. In 1983, AB was awarded by the Academy of Sciences in Moscow the highest academic title of “Doctor of the Physical-Mathematical Sciences”, and later the coveted Kapitza Prize.

The discovery of high-T_c superconductors (HTS) opened new problems and perspectives. In this context, AB and his group, significantly contributed by reporting original results on the “archetype” high-T_c Josephson junctions. Of great impact were the studies on unconventional superconductivity, first developed for ”p-wave” superconductors, but definitely very inspiring for the d-wave experiments on HTS compounds, and later on the physics of HTS Josephson junctions.
 
Macroscopic quantum phenomena and “particle detectors” are the keywords and the logical paths where to bring back several relevant contributions of Antonio scattered in more than 40 years of activity. Topics of his interest ranged from the fundamentals of macroscopic quantum tunnelling to barrier penetration in nonstationary fields, to finally a project into a wider vision of macroscopic quantum phenomena in unconventional systems.

Antonio is universally considered not only the founder of the Superconductivity School in the Napoli area, but also as the “grande maestro” and one of the most representative physicists in Italy. He has filled very relevant positions of scientific management in Italy and participated in many international committees. He has significantly contributed to the popularization of superconductivity as a divulgator, as a professor, as a researcher and as a manager.

An intense wave of sympathy and friendships has arrived from all over the world testifying how his gentleness, his sense of science and his smile were a solid bridge of friendship and respect with colleagues, students and people of everyday life. This premature departure cannot be dissociated from so many years spent working together. This moment cannot be dissociated from the awareness of having had the privilege to deal with a real gentleman of science and life, a man of vision and perspective.

Francesco Tafuri, Giampiero Pepe and Ruggero Vaglio

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Shoji Tanaka of ISTEC Died Suddenly at 84

November 14, 2011 (PO5).  Professor Shoji Tanaka, the preeminent luminary of Japanese superconductivity community suddenly died of pneumonia on November 11, 2011, at the age of 84.  The Funeral ceremony was held on November 15th. 

The IEEE Council on Superconductivity and European Society for Applied Superconductivity express their sincere condolences to ISTEC and all Japanese colleagues.

Shoji Tanaka was born on September 17, 1927.  He obtained his B.S. in Applied Mathematics (1950) and Ph.D. in Engineering (1961) from the University of Tokyo.  In 1999 he became honorary D.Sc. degree from the Purdue University, USA.  In 1955 he was appointed Lecturer, in 1958 Associate Professor and in 1968 full Professor of the University of Tokyo.  Upon his

Professor Tanaka was best known worldwide for his group’s confirmation of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprate oxides (1986) and the leadership of the International Superconductivity Technology Center (ISTEC).   In 1988, he was appointed the first Director General of ISTEC’s Superconductivity Research Laboratory (SRL), which he directed until 2008.  In 1988 he also became the Vice President of ISTEC.  Currently, he was still Advisor to ISTEC/SRL.  In his role, he wielded significant influence in the Japanese science community.  We include the last unofficial photograph of him, a snapshot taken on October 24th at the ISS 2011 conference ( 24th International Symposium on Superconductivity, held at Tower Hall Funabori, Tokyo, October 24 to 26th), not much over two weeks before his passing away.

Shoji Tanaka was author or co-author of about 500 publications, of these over hundred preceding his first involvement with oxide superconductivity (in BaPb1-xBixO3 system) around 1984.  His earlier interests concentrated among others on magnetoresistance and galvanomagnetic effects in semiconductors, for example doped  Si, CdS, etc.  He was also active in various semiconductor device structures, electron transport phenomena, and charge density wave effects in two-dimensional materials.  He contributed to ESNF by his reminiscences “The History of ISTEC” (RN18, April 2011).

Professor Tanaka was decorated by the Emperor of Japan with the Purple Ribbon Medal in 1990 and with the 3rd Class Order of Merit of the Rising Sun in 1999.  He also received numerous prizes: the Technical Achievement Prize of the World Congress on Superconductors in 1988, and the Greatest Prize of the Japan Ceramics Association, also in 1988. In 2003, the Japan Society of Applied Physics presented to Prof. Tanaka the Outstanding Achievement Award, and in 2004 the IEEE Council on Superconductivity presented to him the IEEE Max Swerdlow Award for Sustained Service to the Applied Superconductivity Community. 

We make accessible the official ISTEC obituary received on November 15th.

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Igor Yanson Deceased at 73

September 28, 2011 (PO4).  On July 25, 2011, Professor Igor Yanson has tragically passed away. Igor was born in Kharkov, Ukraine (USSR) on March 18, 1938. Although he never had a chance to meet his father, who fell victim to the Stalinist regime, due to his mother’s efforts he had graduated with honors from the specialized secondary music school and developed a keen interest in radio-electronics. Sharing these two passions throughout his life, in 1957 joined the Kharkov State University to study radio-electronics, and in 1958 the St. Petersburg (Leningrad) State Conservatory to study piano. Graduating cum laude from the former in 1961, he had pursued his passion for science at the Kharkov Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering, where he worked ever since. Being accustomed to finishing everything he started, in 1963 he also graduated cum laude from the conservatory as a performing pianist.

Upon choosing science as his true calling, already in 1964 he was the first to detect the radiation of the non-stationary Josephson effect in superconductors. For this discovery he received the Ukraine Youth Prize on science and technology in 1967. This work has been mentioned by Brian Josephson in his Nobel Prize lecture in 1973. From that moment and to his last day Igor Yanson remained an internationally renowned scientist, always at the frontier of experimental physics. In 1979 he published a seminal paper on DNA mass spectrometry, and in 1974 he had experimentally discovered a completely new and very powerful method in solid state physics – the Point Contact Spectroscopy (PCS). Together with his colleague Igor Kulik, who provided theoretical support, and others, he has perfected this method to its present state, where it has become an established tool, at hand in every laboratory, for the investigation of the electron-quasiparticle interactions in metals and other conductors at the nanoscale down to one-atom contacts.

For his work, and especially for PCS,  he received the Ukraine State Prize in 1980, the EPS Europhysics prize in 1987, the Humboldt Research award in 1996, and the Lisa Meitner Prize in 2008. In 1979 he was elected a corresponding member, and in 1992 he became a full member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In his 50 years at the Institute for Low Temperature Physics in Kharkov he had gathered in his department a team of scientists with whom he co-authored five monographs and over two hundred and fifty scientific articles in most renowned journals.  They will carry his work further.

Igor Yanson is survived by his wife, four children and five grandchildren, who inherited both his passion for music and for experimental science.

(Authored by Yanson department colleagues with Yanson family approval)

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Ernst-Helmut Brandt Succumbed to Cancer

September 9, 2011 (PO3).  On September 1st 2011, Dr. Ernst-Helmut Brandt died peacefully (in his sleep) at home, thus succumbing to an inoperable pancreatic cancer. The vortex community in superconductivity thus lost one of best-known and respected theoreticians.

Ernst-Helmut Brandt was born in Berlin-Kaulsdorf on September 17, 1941, as the second son of the publisher and bookseller Helmut Brandt and Elise Brandt nee Stümpfle. His love of nature and his interest in technical tinkering Ernst Helmut developed already as a child. From October 1961 to June 1967, he studied physics at the University of Stuttgart and the Technical University and the Free University of Berlin (Summer 1966).  From June 1967 to June 1969 he finished the doctoral thesis under Professor

(Abbreviated and edited from a draft by Prof.Klaus Morawetz, Münster Univ. of Applied Science)

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January 14, 2011 (PO2).  German theoretical physicist, Prof. Gert Eilenberger, passed away on November 21st, 2010, after a severe short illness.  His rather sudden departure at 74 came as a sad surprise to his colleagues.  He has been well-known to the superconductivity community as the originator of Eilenberger equations, which are applicable to BCS-like superconductors.  These equations are a simplification of Gor’kov equations and are useful especially for superconducting alloys (1968).

Gert Eilenberger was born in 1936 in Hamburg, got his Ph.D. in 1961 under the well-known Friedrich Hund, and the habilitation (D.Sc.) in 1965, both at Göttingen.  Soon after a postdoctoral stint at Cornell (1965-1967) he became affiliated with the Cologne University and was appointed full professor in 1970. 

Gert was a very engaged and passionate colleague with a strong instinct for what is right and beneficial to the community.  His colleagues and collaborators appreciated his deep and broad knowledge as well as his warm heart and sense of humor.   For this Editor it was a special privilege to know him and be able to interact with, also in matters of FZJ science policy of 1990s.

Alex I. Braginski

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Hisashi Kado Succumbed to Cancer

December 27, 2010 (PO1).  Hisashi Kado, a pioneer of modern biomagnetic SQUID instrumentation in Japan passed away on December 22nd, 2010, after a three-years-long battle with cancer.  He left behind his wife and three sons.

Hisahi was born on February 7th, 1948 and graduated from the Department of Biophysical Engineering, faculty of Engineering Science at the Osaka University in 1971.  His PhD degree he also obtained from Osaka University, in 1984.

In 1971 Hisashi joined the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL) and started his research activity by getting involved in measurements of human hearing system and developing non-invasive methods of functional

In 1995 Hisashi was appointed Professor at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT), and organized there the Applied Electronics Laboratory of KIT, which he then headed.  The objective of this group has been to develop various measurement technologies for biomagnetism, applied physics and other industrial applications.  Hisashi’s and the group’s major success was the completion and industrialization of a 160-channel whole-head MEG system² for medical research and diagnostics, which found use internationally, both in the US and in Europe.

For his achievements Hisashi received the New Technology Development Award of the “Japan Society of Medical and Biological Engineering, Science News”.

As his close collaborator, Gen Uehara, put it, “at SSL and KIT, Hisashi lead many young common researchers to achieve uncommon results, and eventually educated them to be next generation leaders in biomagnetism.”  His premature departure leaves a deep void which will be difficult to fill.

W. James Carr Jr. Passed Away at 92 November 23, 2010 (HE52).  On November 16th, 2010, Walter James (“Jim”) Carr, Jr., author of the first useful monograph on ac losses in supercondicting composite conductors1 and of many important contributions to the field of magnetism and applied superconductivity, passed away at 92 at home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Jim was born on May 6, 1918 in Knob Noster, Missouri.  He initially intended to be a journalist, but instead enrolled at the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla (now University of Missouri at

Jim Carr (ca 1980)

Jim spent all his active career of 43 years at Westinghouse and attained the highest non managerial rank of Consulting Scientist, a rare distinction in that organization.  In 1987 Jim was elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow for his contributions to theories of magnetism, and for development of the theory of alternating current losses in composite superconductors.  He also became Fellow of the American Physical Society.  A seminar at the Department of Physics, University of Maryland, features annually a W. James Carr, Jr. memorial lecture.

This Editor first read an important paper on magnetic anisotropy authored by Jim back in 1950s; it strongly influenced my own work at the very beginning of my professional career.  I was thus truly awed when meeting him in person and having the privilege of working on his side some twenty plus years later.  Those of us who knew Jim well admired equally his sharp mind, impeccably logical reasoning and his most courteous gentle manners.  He was a true gentleman.  Even after his retirement he remained quite active professionally; his last paper was published only 3 years ago.  Until very recently he could be often encountered at various professional conferences.  His departure is a big loss; we’ll miss him…

Alex I. Braginski

¹W. J. Carr, Jr. AC-loss and Macroscopic Theory of Superconductors, Gordon and Breach, 1983 (second edition in 2001).

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Broad thinker advanced both the theoretical and
experimental understanding of superconductivity

November 23, 2010 (HE51).  Below we reproduce the integral text of the Harvard University obituary included in their press release of November 5, 2010.

Michael "Mike" Tinkham, whose latest appointment was as the Rumford Research Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Research Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Department of Physics, passed away on November 4, 2010. He was 82 years old.

Born on February 23, 1928 in Green Lake County, Wisconsin, Tinkham earned his undergraduate degree at Ripon College in 1951 and his Master's and Ph.D. degrees, both in physics, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1951 and 1954 respectively. He also spent a year at the Clarendon Laboratory of Oxford as a postdoctoral fellow.

He joined the University of California, Berkeley in 1957, rising to full professor, and then left in 1966 for Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his career. Tinkham's research focused primarily on superconductivity, as captured in his classic text, Introduction to Superconductivity.

In his later years he was active in studying the unique properties of materials when sample dimensions are reduced to the nanometer range.

In the Journal of Superconductivity, Tinkham's former student Christopher Lobb '80 (Ph.D., Applied Physics), wrote:

"The opportunity to work with Mike ... was one of the greatest experiences of my life. As a researcher, Mike's rare combination of experimental and theoretical ability has kept him at the top of the field for decades.

As a teacher, Mike worked constantly to make things understandable, and did so with enthusiasm and wit. Any success I've had since leaving his group has largely been due to what I learned from him ..."

Tinkham's awards and honors included election to the National Academy of Sciences; the receipt of the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize; and the Fred E. Saalfeld Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Science in 2005.

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