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George Hadjipanayis wins Francis Alison Award

George Hadjipanayis, Richard B. Murray Professor of Physics and chairperson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy
1:38 p.m., Sept. 28, 2005--George Hadjipanayis, Richard B. Murray Professor of Physics and chairperson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been named the 2005 winner of the Francis Alison Award, the University’s highest faculty honor.

The University's Board of Trustees established the award in 1978 to recognize the scholarship, professional achievements and dedication of the UD faculty.

"All of us at the University of Delaware are delighted that Prof. Hadjipanayis has been named the Alison Professor, the highest award for faculty at our institution. His record of service, teaching and research clearly justifies his having been accorded this honor,” UD President David P. Roselle said.

Tom Apple, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of chemistry, said Hadjipanayis is a first-rate scientist whose work in nanomaterials has received international acclaim.

“He has made many fundamental contributions to our understanding of the microstructure of magnetic materials. As chair of our Physics and Astronomy Department, he provides outstanding leadership. He has promoted excellence, and he has created an environment of collaboration to achieve our goals in teaching and research. George is certainly deserving of our most revered faculty award,” Apple said.

“I was astounded to learn that I am the recipient of this year’s award,” Hadjipanayis, who joined UD in 1989, said. "I was ecstatic. I feel humbled to be one of the recipients. I’m very happy.”

Dedicated teacher

During his four-year tenure as chair of UD’s physics and astronomy department, Hadjipanayis not only has spearheaded the merger of the Bartol Research Institute with his department through the academic program review process, but he has continued to teach "Introduction to Magnetism," "Introduction to Electron Microscopy," "Physics Research Talks" and "Fundamentals of Modern Physics."

“My challenge is to make my department better, both in scholarly work and in education programs,” Hadjipanayis said. “My goal is to move the department into the upper quartile of physics departments in the U.S. All that is possible because the University has a commitment to scholarly work and teaching.

“I have been enjoying my work, both in research and teaching, and I’m very happy that I came to the University of Delaware. Even as the chair, I still teach. I volunteered to teach because I love it. I advise grad students and hold weekly meetings. It’s hard work for me, but I believe it’s a duty,” he said.

Hadjipanayis said he is a proponent of collaboration across different academic areas for the benefit of students. “We have excellent resources scattered across physics, chemistry, chemical engineering and materials science. I believe students gain from the collective resources that grow from the academic interaction of the various units,” he said.

Hadjipanayis said UD’s Undergraduate Research Program is key to tapping the potential of budding scientists as active participants while giving them an opportunity to further explore and pursue their interests. He also has worked closely with St. Mark’s High School, the Charter School of Wilmington and Newark High School, among others, to provide high school students opportunities to gain valuable experience by working in UD’s magnetics laboratory.

Cutting-edge researcher

The focus of his current research in permanent magnets is to make stronger magnets. “The stronger they are, the smaller the volume of the magnet you need to use. In this era of miniaturization, you need stronger and smaller magnets,” he said.

“We are trying to go to the next generation of magnets: High-temperature magnets are needed by the U.S. Air Force, which is changing hydraulic systems to electromagnetic systems for the more-electric planes, and magnets very close to engines become very hot,” Hadjipanayis said of his research, which is funded by a $2.4 million grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).

In another $3.7 million grant funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), UD magnetics researchers are working to develop high-performance nanocomposite magnets based on exchange-coupled soft and hard phases.

Hadjipanayis said grants totaling $400,000 from the National Science Foundation and Seagate, a major computer data-storage device manufacturer, are funding research into high-anisotropy magnetic nanoparticles and nanocomposites. The goal is to write data on smaller and smaller particles that, in turn, are more thermally stable. The result would enable the manufacture of smaller, high-capacity magnetic data storage disks made of iron-platinum, which research shows can remain stable at three nanometers. The potential gain in storage capacity can be up to 7 terabits per square inch, from 50 gigabits per square inch, an increase 143 times greater, he said.

“Other interesting applications for magnetic nanoparticles are biological uses, such as the delivery of drugs into the body by attaching them to particles about 10 nanometers in size and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contrast enhancement,” Hadjipanayis said. “Researchers have found that the use of such particles has helped detect prostate cancer at a very early stage.”

Nanoparticles also can be used for hyperthermia treatment of cancer, in which particles are placed in a specific area and activated by magnetic force outside the body to generate heat in the selected area.

In his career, Hadjipanayis has advised 20 graduate students and published more than 400 papers. In addition to his intensive research program, he led the development of a modern magnetics laboratory that is fully equipped with state-of-the-art magnetometers, and a high-resolution scanning and transmission electron microscope. He has written several chapters in books and organized and directed international conferences, including three NATO Advanced Study Institutes. He also regularly teaches courses in magnetic materials and electron microscopy and a NATO Advanced Research Workshop.

The founder and current director of the Consortium for Advanced Magnets, Hadjipanayis has received nearly $13 million in research grants and contracts.

Born in Cyprus, Hadjipanayis received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Athens in 1969. His early work in magnetic materials was at the University of Manitoba in Canada, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees.

As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Nebraska from 1979-80, Hadjipanayis continued his studies on the magnetic and electrical properties of amorphous materials with emphasis on metallic glasses. While working for Kollmorgen Corp. in Radford, Va., from 1980-82, he joined a team to improve the magnetic properties of cobalt and iron-rich magnets. He later led the efforts to develop a cobalt-free permanent magnet, which resulted in the discovery of neodymium-iron-boron supermagnets.

He returned to academia as an assistant professor at Kansas State University in 1982 and later helped start a program there to fabricate ultrafine magnetic particles and study their structural and magnetic properties

Hadjipanayis was named a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2001 and a fellow of the University of Delaware Center for Advanced Study in 2000. He was named Richard B. Murray Professor of Physics in 1999 and won UD’s Arts and Sciences Best Scholar Award in 1998. He was a Humboldt Senior Fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, from 1998-2000.

Article by Martin Mbugua
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson

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