2008 Medal Winners | francais

PRESS RELEASE / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The 2008 CAP/DCMMP Brockhouse Medal

is awarded to

Jess Brewer

winner quote

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the 2008 CAP/DCMMP Brockhouse Medal is awarded to Jess Brewer, University of British Columbia, in recognition of for his pioneering work to develop muon spin relaxation and related techniques, leading to the creation of an important new field in materials physics. announcement

Jess Brewer was the pioneer who created, for Canada and the world. the important field of Muon Spin Rotation/Relaxation (MuSR) for materials science. It uses the spin of TRIUMF's muons for many studies in condensed matter physics, for example, for the properties of high temperature superconductors. Three complementary techniques for condensed matter physics have emerged from nuclear and accelerator physics: i) neutron beams from reactors and, more recently, from accelerator-driven spallation sources; ii) photons from synchrotron-bassed light sources; iii) slow muons from meson factories. When Brewer arrived in Canada, thirty-five years ago, he came with a truckload of magnets from Berkeley to initiate a muon beamline for condensed matter physics. There were only two places in the world where the new technique of MuSR could be developed: TRIUMF in Vancouver and PSI in Switzerland. Brewer was immediately joined by an international team of users, with an especially strong team from Tokyo Univerity. Almost instantly, in large measure because of Brewer's leadership, MuSR became a very strong component of TRIUMF's program. He forresaw the importance of low energy muons with high polarization and therefore developed the versatile surface muon beamlines which became the standard at all the existing MuSR facilities (the original pair of facilities was joined by RAL in Britain and will be joined by a new facility in Japan). It was Jess' group which initiated the muon-level-crossing resonance (MuLCR) technique which has received many applications. When the high-temperature superconductors were first announce it was Brewer who, within days, was carrying ou important MuSR experiments on these materials. His pioneering work at TRIUMF created a worldclass scientific program. nominator citation

medal description

Jess Brewer will receive the 2008 CAP/DCMMP Brockhouse Medal during the CAP's awards banquet to be held at on 0000-00-00.

The Canadian Association of Physicists, founded in 1945, is a professional association representing over 1600 individual physicists and physics students in Canada, the U.S. and overseas, as well as a number of Corporate, Institutional, and Departmental Members. In addition to its learned activities, the CAP also undertakes a number of activities intended to encourage students to pursue a career in physics. cap description

joint description

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For more information, please contact:

Canadian Association of Physicists
Tel: (613) 562-5614
Fax: (613) 562-5615
E-mail: cap@uottawa.cacap contact and joint contact