Thomas Ebbesen of the Université Louis Pasteur in Paris, Stefan Hell of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany; and John Pendry of Imperial College London received the Kavli prizes for their work in nanoscience. They demonstrated that light can interact with nanostructures smaller than light’s wavelength. This is an important contribution increasing the efficiency and spatial focus of photonic devices and the sensitivity of optical sensors. Prizes for neuroscience rewarded Brenda Milner of McGill University in Montreal, John O’Keefe of University College London and Marcus Raichle at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri who elucidated how specialized nerve cells perform different functions and revealed details about brain regions involved in memory.
The Kavli Foundation, based in Oxnard, California, was established in 2000 by the Norwegian-born entrepeneur Fred Kavli (1927-2013). The prizes consists of a cash award of $1 million, as well as a gold medal.
