Recipient: 2001 William Hume-Rothery Award

Balazs L. Gyorffy

Biography: Balazs Gyorffy has served as professor of theoretical physics at the University of Bristol since 1987.

Prof. Gyorffy received a B.S. and Ph.D. from Yale University. At the University of Bristol, he acted as a lecturer from 1970–1980 and a reader from 1980–1987. He has held visiting positions at Oakridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Institute Laue-Langevan, University of Toronto, and Technical University of Vienna. In collaboration with many, but particularly with G.M. Stocks and J.S. Faulkner, he invited and pioneered the application of the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker-Coherent-Potential-Approximation (KKR-CPA), a first-principles method for calculating the electronic structure of metallic alloys. Advances made using the KKR-CPA are summarized in Gyroffy et al (Phil. Trans. R. Soc.Lond.A (1991) 334 515-516). Prof. Gyorffy was elected an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1995, named a Fellow of the Institute of Physics in1998, and was co-recipient of the Gordon Bell Prize in 1998. He has authored or co-authored 220 publications.

 

Quote: “Working in a department where ‘Metals and Alloys’ by Mott and Jones was written in 1936 and only a short distance from Oxford where Hume-Rothery did his seminal work and wrote his influential ‘The Structure of Metals and Alloys’ at about the same time, I always thought of the application of the KKR-CPA method to calculations of the electronic properties of metallic alloys as a continuation of the work of these pioneers. This award pleases me because it recognizes that the continuation turned out to be progress.”