Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology – Wikipedia

Award

The Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology is an award given by the Foresight Institute for significant advances in nanotechnology. Two prizes are awarded annually, in the categories of experimental and theoretical work. There is also a separate challenge award for making a nanoscale robotic arm and 8-bit adder.

Overview[edit]

The Feynman Prize consists of annual prizes in experimental and theory categories, as well as a one-time challenge award. They are awarded by the Foresight Institute, a nanotechnology advocacy organization. The prizes are named in honor of physicist Richard Feynman, whose 1959 talk There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom is considered by nanotechnology advocates to have inspired and informed the start of the field of nanotechnology.^[1]

The annual Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology is awarded for pioneering work in nanotechnology, towards the goal of constructing atomically precise products through molecular machine systems. Input on prize candidates comes from both Foresight Institute personnel, and outside academic and commercial organizations. The awardees are selected mainly by an annually changing body of former winners and other academics.^[1] The prize is considered prestigious,^[1][2] and authors of one study considered it to be reasonably representative of notable research in the parts of nanotechnology under its scope.^[1]

The separate Feynman Grand Prize is a $250,000 challenge award to the first persons to create both a nanoscale robotic arm capable of precise positional control, and a nanoscale 8-bit adder, conforming to given specifications. It is intended to stimulate the field of molecular nanotechnology.^[3][4][5]

History[edit]

The Feynman Prize was instituted in the context of Foresight Institute co-founder K. Eric Drexler’s advocacy of funding for molecular manufacturing.^[1] The prize was first given in 1993. Before 1997, one prize was given biennially. From 1997 on, two prizes were given each year in theory and experimental categories.^[1] By awarding these prizes early in the history of the field, the prize increased awareness of nanotechnology and influenced its direction.^{[6]: 60 [7][8]}

The Grand Prize was announced in 1995 at the Fourth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology and was sponsored by James Von Ehr and Marc Arnold.^[9][10] In 2004, X-Prize Foundation founder Peter Diamandis was selected to chair the Feynman Grand Prize committee.^[3]

Recipients[edit]

Single prize[edit]

Experimental category[edit]

Theory category[edit]

Year	Laureate	Institution	Scope of work
1997	Charles Bauschlicher	NASA Ames Research Center	Computational nanotechnology[15][49]
	Stephen Barnard
	Creon Levit
	Glenn Deardorff
	Al Globus
	Jie Han
	Richard Jaffe
	Alessandra Ricca
	Marzio Rosi
	Deepak Srivastava
	H. Thuemmel
1998	Ralph C. Merkle	Zyvex	Molecular tools for atomically precise chemical reactions[16][17]
	Stephen Walch	ELORET Corporation/NASA Ames Research Center
1999	William A. Goddard III	California Institute of Technology	Modeling of molecular machines[18]
	Tahir Cagin
	Yue Qi
2000	Uzi Landman	Georgia Institute of Technology	Computational materials science for nanostructures[21]
2001	Mark A. Ratner	Northwestern University	Molecular scale electronics[22]
2002	Don Brenner	North Carolina State University	Molecular machines for molecular manufacturing[23][24]
2003	Marvin L. Cohen	University of California, Berkeley	Modeling of new materials[25]
	Steven G. Louie
2004	David Baker	University of Washington	Development of RosettaDesign[26]
	Brian Kuhlman	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2005	Christian Joachim	French National Centre for Scientific Research	Theoretical tools and design principles for molecular machines[6]: 56 [27]
2006	Erik Winfree	California Institute of Technology	DNA computing[29]
	Paul W. K. Rothemund
2007	David A. Leigh	University of Edinburgh	Design and synthesis of molecular machines[30]
2008	George C. Schatz	Northwestern University	Modeling of dip-pen nanolithography, and of plasmon effects in metallic nanoparticles[31]
2009	Robert A. Freitas Jr.	Institute for Molecular Manufacturing	Mechanosynthesis and systems design of molecular machines[32]
2010	Gustavo E. Scuseria	Rice University	Tools for modeling of carbon nanostructures[34]
2011	Raymond Astumian	University of Maine	Molecular machines powered by Brownian motion[35][36]
2012	David Soloveichik	University of California, San Francisco	DNA computing using strand displacement cascades[37]
2013	David Beratan	Duke University	Functional supramolecular assemblies[38]
2014	Amanda Barnard	Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation	Carbon nanostructure structure-function relationships[39][50]
2015	Markus J. Buehler	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Mechanical simulations of materials[40]
2016	Bartosz Grzybowski	Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology	Modeling of the outcomes of organic reactions[42]
2017	Giovanni Zocchi	University of California, Los Angeles	Stress–strain analysis of soft nanoparticles[43]
2018	O. Anatole von Lilienfeld	University of Basel, now University of Vienna	Methods for fast quantum mechanical modelling[44]
2019	Giulia Galli	University of Chicago	The development of theoretical and computational methods to predict and design, from first principles, the properties of nanostructured materials.[45]
2020	Massimiliano Di Ventra	University of California, San Diego	Quantum transport in nanoscale and atomic systems; prediction of nanoscale phenomena which were later verified experimentally, studied memory effects in materials and devices.[51]
2021	Kendall N. Houk	UCLA	Quantum mechanical and molecular dynamics simulations which have elucidated structural and dynamical features of synthetic nanomachines.[47][52]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]