John Brian Pendry | |
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 Pendry in 2014 | |
| Born | (1943-07-04)4 July 1943 (age 82)[1] |
| Alma mater | Downing College, Cambridge[1] |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | The application of pseudopotentials to low energy electron diffraction (1970) |
| Doctoral advisor | Volker Heine |
| Website | www3 www |
Sir John Brian Pendry,FRS HonFInstP (born 4 July 1943[2][3]) is an Englishtheoretical physicist known for his research intometamaterials and creation of the first practical "Invisibility Cloak". He is a professor of theoretical solid state physics atImperial College London where he was head of the department of physics (1998–2001) and principal of the faculty of physical sciences (2001–2002). He is an honorary fellow ofDowning College, Cambridge, (where he was an undergraduate) and anIEEE fellow.[4] He received the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience "for transformative contributions to the field of nano-optics that have broken long-held beliefs about the limitations of the resolution limits of optical microscopy and imaging.", together withStefan Hell, andThomas Ebbesen, in 2014.
Pendry was educated atDowning College, Cambridge, graduating with aMaster of Arts degree inNatural Sciences and aPhD in 1969.[5]
John Pendry was born in Manchester, where his father was an oil representative, and took a degree in Natural Sciences at theDowning College, Cambridge after which he was appointed as a research fellow, between 1969 and 1975. He spent time atBell Labs in 1972–3 and was head of the theory group at theSERCDaresbury Laboratory from 1975 to 1981, when he was appointed to the chair in theoretical physics atImperial College, London, where he stayed for the rest of his career. Preferring administration to teaching, he was Dean of theRoyal College of Science from 1993 to 1996, head of the Physics Department from 1998 to 2001 and Principal of the Faculty of Physical Sciences 2001–2. He has authored over 300 research papers and encouraged many experimental initiatives.[2][6]
He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society in 1984 and in 2004 he was knighted in theBirthday Honours.[7][8] In 2008, an issue ofJournal of Physics: Condensed Matter was dedicated to him in honour of his 65th birthday.
He is married to Pat, a mathematician he met at Cambridge who became a tax inspector. They have no children. His hobbies include playing the piano.[6]
Pendry has authored or co-authored a wide range of articles[9][10][11][12][13][14] and several books.[15][16]
Pendry's research career started with his PhD, which was concerned withlow-energy electron diffraction (LEED),[5] a technique for examining the surface of materials which had been discovered in the twenties but which waited for Pendry's method of computing the results to become practical. His supervisor,Volker Heine observed that Pendry "is one of the few research students that I have had who did things independently that I could never have done myself". At Bell Labs, Pendry worked withPatrick Lee in photoelectron spectroscopy to develop the first quantitative theory ofEXAFS, for which he was awarded the Dirac Prize of theInstitute of Physics in 1996.[2]
Pendry noticed that the problem of photoemission was similar to his work on LEED and this was important as thesynchrotron at Daresbury was just coming online. As head of the theory group there he published his theory ofangle-resolved photoemission which remains the standard model in the field. These methods enabled the band structure of electrons in solids and at surfaces to be determined to unprecedented accuracy and in 1980 he proposed the technique ofinverse photoemission which is now widely used for probing unoccupied electron states.
Whilst maintaining his position as the UK's leading theoretical surface physicist, at Imperial he began to study the behaviour of electrons in disordered media and derived a complete solution of the general scattering problem in one dimension and advanced techniques for studying higher dimensions, which are relevant to conductivity of bio-molecules. In 1994 he published his first papers on photonic band structures enabling the interaction of light with metallic systems to be discovered. This led to his invention of the idea ofmetamaterials. Currently, the idea of metamaterials has evolved from its initial focus on electromagnetic or optical wave systems[12][13] - the first stage, to other wave systems[17] - the second stage, and has further expanded to diffusion systems[18][19][20] - the third stage. The control equations for these three stages are completely different,[21][22] namely Maxwell equations (a type of wave equation for transverse waves), other wave equations (used to describe both longitudinal and transverse waves), and diffusion equations (used to describe diffusion processes). Therefore, from the perspective of control equations, researchers today can divide the field of metamaterials into three main branches: Electromagnetic/Optical wave metamaterials, other wave metamaterials, anddiffusion metamaterials.Diffusion metamaterials are crafted to master various diffusion dynamics, where diffusion length serves as the pivotal measure. This parameter fluctuates over time, yet it does not respond to alterations in frequency. Conversely, wave metamaterials, tailored to modify diverse wave travel patterns, hinge on the wavelength of the incoming waves as their vital measure. Unlike diffusion length, wavelength stays steady over time but varies with frequency changes. At their core, the primary measures of diffusion and wave metamaterials diverge significantly, highlighting a unique complementary connection between the two; more details can be found in Section I.B "Evolution of metamaterial physics" of Ref.[21]
An article inPhysical Review Letters in 2000 which extended work done by Russian scientistVictor Veselago and suggested a simple method of creating a lens whose focus was theoretically perfect, has become his most cited paper.[9] Initially, it had many critics who could not believe that such a short article could present such a radical idea. However his ideas were confirmed experimentally and the notion of thesuperlens has revolutionised nanoscale optics.[2]
In 2006 he came up with the idea of bending light in such a way that it could form a container around an object which effectively makes the object invisible and produced a paper withDavid R. Smith ofDuke University, who demonstrated the idea at the frequency ofmicrowaves. This idea, commonly known as theInvisibility cloak, has stimulated much recent work in the field of metamaterials.[23] In 2009 he and Stefan Maier received a large grant from theLeverhulme Trust to develop the ideas of perfect lens and invisibility cloak in the optical range of light.[24]
In 2025, Pendry was awarded theCopley Medal of the Royal Society.[25]
In 2024, Pendry was awarded theKyoto Prize in Advanced Technology in the category of "Material Sciences and engineering".
In 2023, Pendry,Sheldon Schultz andDavid R. Smith were selected asClarivate Citation laureates in Physics "for their prediction and discovery ofnegative refraction."[26]
In 2019, Pendry won theSPIE Mozi Award "in recognition of his eminent contributions to the development of perfect lens"[27]
In 2016, Sir John Pendry was awarded theDan David Prize.
In 2014, he was a co-recipient of theKavli Prize in Nanoscience, awarded by theNorwegian Academy of Science and Letters, withStefan Hell of theMax Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, andThomas Ebbesen of theUniversity of Strasbourg.[28]
In 2013, he won theInstitute of Physics Isaac Newton Medal.[29]
In 1994, he was a recipient of the BVC Medal and Prize, awarded bythe British Vacuum Council.
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