Indian chemist wins Israeli prize

By agencies   |   Tuesday, 17 May 2005, 19:30 IST
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JERUSALEM: Eminent Indian chemist, C N R Rao has won the prestigious $1 million Dan David prize, instituted by the Dan David foundation, for his outstanding contribution to material science. Rao, a Linus Pauling Research Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore, is one of the world's foremost solid state and material chemists. A prolific and sustained contributor to the development of the field, the scientist's work on transition metal oxides has led to basic understanding of the novel phenomena and the relationship between materials' properties and the structural chemistry of these materials. One of the earliest to synthesize two-dimensional oxide materials such as La2CuO4, Rao's work has led to a systematic study of compositionally controlled metal-insulator transitions. "The studies hold unusual promise and have had a profound impact in application fields such as colossal magneto resistance and high temperature superconductivity", the selection committee noted. The Dan David prize is a joint international enterprise endowed by the Dan David Foundation and headquartered at Tel Aviv University. It is annually awarded in three different fields - Archaeology, Performing Arts and Material Science - in the three-dimension time framework of past, present and future. The laureates annually donate 20 scholarships of $15,000 each out of the total sum of the scholarship to outstanding doctoral students throughout the world to foster future generation of emerging talent in chosen fields.