Emeritus Professor of Electromagnetism, Archie Campbell, has been honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Archie’s research has made a major impact on the fundamental understanding of the electromagnetic properties of superconductors of all material forms, and on their magnetic properties, in particular.
Award citation
The 2018 ICMC (International Cryogenic Materials Conference) Lifetime Achievement Award recognises those whose careers have been spent advancing the knowledge of cryogenic materials through the quality and innovative nature of their work. The Award also recognises the impact the recipient has had on their field of work and their worldwide reputation.
The Award citation reads: Archie Campbell is being recognised for his outstanding contributions over the last 50 years to the vortex physics, AC loss, magnetisation and materials science of both high and low Tc type II superconductors.
Archie’s research has made a major impact on the fundamental understanding of the electromagnetic properties of superconductors of all material forms, and on their magnetic properties, in particular. This has led to a better understanding of how to perform meaningful experiments of type II superconductors using, for example, the “Campbell technique” and how to apply these materials in bulk and wire-based engineering devices.
In 1973, along with Jan Evetts, Archie published a subject-defining book entitled 'Critical Currents in Superconductors', which has been described as the bible of type II superconductivity and has contributed to the education of hundreds, if not thousands, of students and researchers in the field.
Professor Campbell was part of the Department’s Bulk Superconductivity Research Group, that in 2014, set a new world record for a trapped field in a superconductor. The team, led by Professor David Cardwell, harnessed the equivalent of three tonnes of force inside a golf ball-sized sample of material that is normally as brittle as fine china.
The researchers managed to ‘trap’ a magnetic field with a strength of 17.6 Tesla – corresponding to an energy density that is roughly 350 times greater than that generated by a typical fridge magnet – in a high temperature gadolinium barium copper oxide (GdBCO) superconductor, beating the previous record by 0.4 Tesla.
