Founded in 1780 during the American Revolution, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an honorary society whose earliest members included Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. This year, Pengcheng Dai, a Rice University professor, former staff neutron scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and former University of Tennessee professor, was elected to the Academy for his more than 30 years of research in the field of superconductivity.
“I am honored to be selected by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,” said Dai, who is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “This recognition and being admitted into an incredible community of past and present visionaries is both humbling and exciting.”
The American Academy began as an organization with a broad mandate and has experienced several transformations, dedicating itself at times to scientific discovery or vexing social problems. In recent decades, the Academy has transitioned into an organization grappling with many of the nation’s most pressing issues – while also celebrating the most inspiring achievements across disciplines.
Dai is being recognized for establishing spin excitations as the unifying experimental signature linking magnetism and superconductivity across unconventional superconductors. His neutron scattering experiments provided decisive evidence connecting magnetic correlations to superconducting pairing.
“My work with neutrons at ORNL, first at the High Flux Isotope Reactor and now also at the Spallation Neutron Source, was essential in helping reveal the link between magnetism and superconductivity across unconventional superconductors,” said Dai. “This was possible due to the support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science and Basic Energy Sciences, which helped us document the role of magnetic excitations in unconventional copper-based and iron-based superconductors as well as heavy fermion systems.”
Heavy fermions are compounds containing rare earth metals or radioactive metallic compounds.
“Pengcheng’s long history of research and discovery in superconductivity has led him to become one the world’s foremost scientists in the field,” said Jon Taylor, associate laboratory director at ORNL’s Neutron Sciences Directorate. “We are proud to have had a role in helping him be elected to the Academy and congratulate him on this honor.”
Dai will be formally inducted into the Academy on Oct. 10 alongside more than 250 other outstanding individuals.
SNS and HFIR are DOE Office of Science user facilities.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science – Paul Boisvert
