Clifford Shull

Clifford Glenwood Shull (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 23, 1915 – March 31, 2001) was a Nobel Prize-winning American physicist.

Biography

He attended Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, received BS from Carnegie Institute of Technology and PhD from New York University. He worked for The Texas Company at Beacon, New York during the war time, followed by a position in the Clinton Laboratory (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), and finally joined MIT in 1955, and retired in 1986.

Research

Clifford G. Shull was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics with Canadian Bertram Brockhouse. The two won the prize for the development of the neutron scattering technique. He also conducted research on condensed matter. Professor Shull's prize was awarded for his pioneering work in neutron scattering, a technique that reveals where atoms are within a material like ricocheting bullets reveal where obstacles are in the dark.

When a beam of neutrons is directed at a given material, the neutrons bounce off, or are scattered by, atoms in the sample being investigated. The neutrons' directions change, depending on the location of the atoms they hit, and a diffraction pattern of the atoms' positions can then be obtained. Understanding where atoms are in a material and how they interact with one another is the key to understanding a material's properties.