Oxford Instruments NanoScience is proud to sponsor the Lee Osheroff Richardson (LOR) Science Prize for North and South America for research in physical science. The objective of the LOR Science Prize is to promote and recognise the novel work of young scientists working in the fields of low temperatures, high magnetic fields or surface science in North and South America. Oxford Instruments is aware that there is a critical and often difficult stage for many, between completing their PhD and gaining a permanent research position. The company therefore would like to help individuals who are producing innovative work in these fields by offering assistance, both financially and by promoting their research work through sponsoring this prestigious award.

The winner is chosen by the prize selection committee comprising leading physicists from North and South America.

The Lee Osheroff Richardson Science Prize for North and South America consists of:

• 8,000 dollars cash prize
• a certificate and trophy
• support to attend the next APS March Meeting, where the winner is awarded at a special event by Oxford Instruments 'Socialize with Science'

2020 LOR Science Prize winner selected: Dr Sheng Ran of University of Maryland/NIST has been selected as the 2020 winner. 

Lee Osheroff Richardson 

The Lee Osheroff Richardson Science Prize for North and South America is named after David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff and Robert C. Richardson who were joint winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996, for their discovery of superfluidity in ³He.

They conducted the Nobel prize winning research in the early 1970's in the low temperature laboratory at Cornell University using apparatus they had built to produce sample temperatures within a few thousandths of a degree of absolute zero. Their findings proved that the helium isotope 3He can be made superfluid at a temperature only about two thousandths of a degree above absolute zero. The discovery initiated intensive research on the special characteristics of the new quantum liquid. Lee, Osheroff and Richardson have also received, among other awards, the Sir Francis Simon Memorial Prize 1976 (Institute of Physics UK), and the Oliver E. Buckley Solid State Physics Prize 1980 (American Physical Society); for the discovery of superfluidity in ³He.

Oxford Instruments would like to thank David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff and Robert C. Richardson for permission to name the prize after them.