Isaac Newton Medal
Gold medal awarded annually by the Institute of Physics
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The Isaac Newton Medal and Prize is a gold medal awarded annually by the Institute of Physics (IOP) accompanied by a prize of £1,000.[2] The award is given to a physicist, regardless of subject area, background or nationality, for outstanding contributions to physics. The award winner is invited to give a lecture at the institute. It is named in honour of Sir Isaac Newton. The award is recognized as the most prestigious award of the IOP.[3]
United Kingdom
| Isaac Newton Medal and Prize | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | World-leading contributions to physics by an individual of any nationality. |
| Sponsored by | Institute of Physics |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Presented by | Institute of Physics |
| Rewards | Gold medal, £1000 |
| First award | 2008 |
| Website | Official website |
The first medal was awarded in 2008 to Anton Zeilinger, having been announced in 2007.[4] It gained national recognition in the UK in 2013 when it was awarded for technology that could lead to an 'invisibility cloak'.[5][6] By 2018 it was recognised internationally as the highest honour from the IOP.[7] In 2020, a citation study identified it as one of the five most prestigious prizes in physics, ranking third.[8]
Recipients
| Year | Name | Rationale (for) |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Anton Zeilinger | "his pioneering conceptual and experimental contributions to the foundations of quantum physics, which have become the cornerstone for the rapidly-evolving field of quantum information"[4][9] |
| 2009 | Alan Guth | "his invention of the inflationary universe model, his recognition that inflation would solve major problems confronting then-standard cosmology, and his calculation, with others, of the spectrum of density fluctuations that gave rise to structure in the universe"[10] |
| 2010 | Edward Witten | "his many profound contributions that have transformed areas of particle theory, quantum field theory and general relativity"[11][12] |
| 2011 | Leo Kadanoff | "inventing conceptual tools that reveal the deep implications of scale invariance on the behavior of phase transitions and dynamical systems"[13] |
| 2012 | Martin Rees | his outstanding contributions to relativistic astrophysics and cosmology[14][15] |
| 2013 | John Pendry | “seminal contributions to surface science, disordered systems and photonics”[16][5][17][6] |
| 2014 | Deborah S. Jin | "pioneering the field of quantum-degenerate Fermi gases"[18][19][20] |
| 2015 | Eli Yablonovitch | "visionary and foundational contributions to photonic nanostructures"[21][22][23] |
| 2016 | Tom Kibble | "outstanding lifelong commitment to physics" (posthumously)[24] |
| 2017 | Charles L. Bennett | "leadership of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe, a satellite experiment that revolutionized cosmology, transforming it from an order-of-magnitude game to a paragon of precision science"[25][26] |
| 2018 | Paul Corkum | "his outstanding contributions to experimental physics"[7][27][28][29] |
| 2019 | Michael Pepper | "the creation of the field of semiconductor nanoelectronics and discovery of new quantum phenomena"[30][31][32][33][34] |
| 2020 | Nader Engheta | "groundbreaking innovation and transformative contributions to electromagnetic complex materials and nanoscale optics, and for pioneering development of the fields of near-zero-index metamaterials, and material-inspired analogue computation and optical nanocircuitry" |
| 2021 | David Deutsch | "founding the discipline named quantum computation and establishing quantum computation's fundamental idea, now known as the ‘qubit’ or quantum bit"[35] |
| 2022 | Margaret Murnane | "pioneering and sustained contributions to the development of ultrafast lasers and coherent X-ray sources and the use of such sources to understand the quantum nature of materials"[36] |
| 2023 | James Binney | "advancing the science of stellar dynamics and using strong physical intuition to widen and deepen our understanding of how galaxies are structured and formed."[37] |
| 2024 | Richard Friend | "for pioneering and enduring work on the fundamental electronic properties of molecular semiconductors and in their engineering development."[38] |
| 2025 | Michael Berry | "for groundbreaking work on the geometrical Berry phase of quantum states in topological physics and seminal contributions to mathematical physics in quantum chaos, catastrophe theory and singular optics."[39] |