Peter David Nellist, is a British

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and materials scientist, currently a professor in the Department of Materials at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. He is noted for pioneering new techniques in high-resolution

electron microscopy An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

Early life and career

Nellist gained his

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

(1991),

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

(1995) and

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

(1996) from

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, and studied at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

with

John Rodenburg John Marius Rodenburg One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: is Professor in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Education Rodenburg w ...

, before taking up post-doctoral research at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and ...

(ORNL) in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

with ex-Cavendish researcher Stephen Pennycook. Eighteen months later, Nellist returned to Cambridge on a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, which he transferred to the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

. He left academia for four years to work for another ex-Cambridge microscopy pioneer,

Ondrej Krivanek Ondrej L. Krivanek (born Ondřej Ladislav Křivánek; August 1, 1950) is a Czech/British physicist resident in the United States, and a leading developer of electron-optical instrumentation. He won the Kavli Prize for Nanoscience in 2020 for his ...

, at Nion, his newly formed company in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. Nellist then returned to the

University of Dublin The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...

and finally to the University of Oxford, where he became Joint Head of the Department of Materials in 2019.

Scientific research

Nellist's research focuses on

scanning transmission electron microscopy A scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) is a type of transmission electron microscope (TEM). Pronunciation is tɛmor �sti:i:ɛm As with a conventional transmission electron microscope (CTEM), images are formed by electrons passing ...

and its use in materials science. In particular, he is noted for work on electron ptychography, quantitative image interpretation, and the development of corrective electron microscope lenses, which he describes as "like spectacles for a microscope". In 1998, working with Stephen Pennycook of ORNL, he recorded "the highest resolution microscope images ever made of crystal structures".

Achievements and awards

Nellist has won many awards, including the 2007 Burton Medal from the

Microscopy Society of America The Microscopy Society of America (MSA) was founded in 1942 as The Electron Microscope Society of America and is a non-profit organization that provides microanalytical facilities for studies within the sciences. Currently, there are approximately 3 ...

for "an exceptional contribution to microscopy", the 2013

Ernst Ruska Ernst August Friedrich Ruska (; 25 December 1906 – 27 May 1988) was a German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986 for his work in electron optics, including the design of the first electron microscope. Life and career Erns ...

Prize from the German Electron Microscopy Society for the development of confocal electron microscopy, the 2013 Birks Award from the Microbeam Analysis Society, and the 2016 and 2020

European Microscopy Society The European Microscopy Society is an international learned society which represents the field of microscopy in Europe. It was founded in 1998 following the disbanding of the ''Committee of European Societies of Electron Microscopy'' (which was ...

prizes for best published paper in materials science. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 2020. He is the vice-president of the

Royal Microscopical Society The Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) is a learned society for the promotion of microscopy. It was founded in 1839 as the Microscopical Society of London making it the oldest organisation of its kind in the world. In 1866, the society gained it ...

(of which he was also made an Honorary Fellow in 2020) and a board member of the European Microscopy Society.

Selected publications

Books

Scientific papers

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References

External links

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Seeing is Believing: How observing atoms in the electron microscope helps develop tomorrow's materials
A schools outreach talk by Peter Nellist explaining his work on electron microscopy. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nellist, Peter Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Birmingham Fellows of the Royal Society British materials scientists Microscopists English physicists