Stefan Hell received this year’s Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics at the Laser World of Photonics event in Munich on Tuesday 19 June, for his revolutionary work in fluorescence microscopy.
Hell received the prestigious award of $5,000, for his discovery that resolutions far below the diffraction limit can be achieved in resolutions far below the light wavelength, using conventional lenses. The technique could provide new methods for non-invasive imaging of human tissue.
Hell is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, a place he has held for 10 years. He has already received widespread acclaim for his work, having won the Prize of the International Commission of Optics in 2000, the Carl Zeiss Award in 2002, and last year’s German Innovation Award.
The Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics recognises researchers who have made an outstanding and innovative contribution to the field of applied physics. It has been awarded annually since 1998 by the editors-in-chief of the Springer journals Applied Physics A – Materials Science & Processing and Applied Physics B – Lasers and Optics.
