Prizes and honours

Recipients

Photos

Giovanna Fragneto
Giovanna joined the ILL as a scientist in 1997. She was Instrument Scientist on the small-angle diffractometer D16 and on the reflectometer D17 as well as project leader for the construction of the reflectometer FIGARO.  In 2008 she was appointed Senior Fellow in soft matter and was responsible for setting up the Partnership for Soft Condensed Matter (PSCM) with the ESRF. In 2015 she became Group Leader of the Large Scale Structures group. More recently she pursued the creation of the L-Lab, a deuterated lipid extraction facility at the ILL.
During her time at the ILL, Giovanna worked in the field of biomembranes and never stopped her Local Contact duties. As a result, she was author of more than 170 publications and invited speaker at more than 100 national and international conferences and schools.
In December 2022, Giovanna left the ILL to take on the role of Science Director at ESS, the future European neutron spallation source.
2023 - Giovanna received the JCIS Darsh Wasan Award, for her "outstanding contributions related to the use of neutron scattering, particularly reflectometry, for the structural characterization of model biological membranes, with the aim of understanding phenomena at cell surfaces".
2006 - Giovanna received the RSC B.T.M. Willis Prize, a prize awarded by the Neutron Scattering Group - a joint Interest Group of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry  - in recognition of her "outstanding neutron scattering science. The prize was awarded for research on model cell membrane systems".

@2022 A.Tengattini

Lukáš Gajdos
Lukáš came to the ILL in 2017 as an Erasmus student trainee and stayed on to complete a PhD in the Life Sciences group under the supervision of Trevor Forsyth, Juliette Devos and Matthew Blakeley from ILL and Anne Imberty from CERMAV. During his PhD Lukáš studied the protein-carbohydrate interactions involved in bacterial infections to gain structural insights into bacterial-host recognition using mostly neutrons. He is now a post-doc in the LSS group working on radiation damage in protein crystals using both neutron and X-ray crystallography.
2022 - The eleventh Erwin Félix Lewy Bertaut Prize was awarded to Lukáš in recognition of "his exceptional research on the characterisation of the interaction of lectins with sugars by neutron diffraction and all the experimental difficulties that he has overcome to obtain these results".

Sabrina Disch
Sabrina did a post-doc at the ILL under the supervision of Albrecht Wiedenmann, and is still a core user of the ILL. The neutron experiments she led at the ILL were key to the success highlighted by the Wolfram-Prandl-Prize.
2020 -The Wolfram-Prandl-Prize  was awarded to Sabrina for "her outstanding research results on the understanding of structure, spin structure and spin dynamics of magnetic nanoparticles, their self-organisation and the resulting forming structures, achieved with innovative neutron scattering methods". See here for more details.

Markus Appel
Markus first stayed at the ILL as an intern during his physics studies in 2009, and came back in 2011 for his PhD project under the supervision of Bernhard Frick in collaboration with Bernd Stühn at the TU Darmstadt, studying the molecular ring rotation of Ferrocen and Ferrocen-containing polymers with Quasielastic neutron scattering. He then moved to working in the field of neutron instrumentation and helped implementing the BATS option and the GaAs demonstrator on IN16B as a PostDoc in collaboration with Andreas Magerl (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg) from 2014 on, before becoming an ILL staff scientist and instrument responsible of the IN16B backscattering spectrometer in 2019.
2019 - Markus was awarded the inaugural ENSA Neutron Instrumentation and Innovation Award for "ground-breaking advances of the neutron back-scattering technique leading to extended dynamic range, higher resolution and better signal-to-noise on the IN16B spectrometer at ILL. These span from conceptual changes such as moving from monochromator to time-of-flight, over clever rephasing of choppers to achieve ultra-low background, to the material and mechanical challenge of implementing GaAs analyzers. Together these improvements to the IN16B spectrometer at ILL has enabled a wide range of exciting science by a large number of user groups – perfectly embellishing the spirit of the Neutron Instrumentationand Innovation Award".

©2022 ILL

Bruno Desbrière
Bruno arrived at the ILL in 2004 and, until his retirement in 2020, Bruno was the deputy head of the reactor and, as such, he managed projects crucial to the survival of the RHF. Let us quote for example, the design and the development of the CRU (ultimate reflooding circuit), the PCS III (emergency control room) and the reactor driving simulator. He also carried out the procedure for the extension of the operating licence of the reactor.
2021 - Bruno was the co-recipient of the Le Grand Prix SFEN, an award for (as translated from French) "The contribution of advanced analysis methods for the seismic safety of nuclear civil engineering facilities in the post-Fukushima context."

William (Bill) George Stirling
Bill's research activities have ranged across magnetic structure and excitations, magnetic thin films and multilayers, the dynamics of liquid ⁴He and liquid ³He, and neutron then synchrotron X-ray scattering techniques. He also conceived, designed and supervised the construction of advanced instrumentation for neutron inelastic scattering at ILL and for X-ray scattering at universities and the ESRF (the UK-CRG, XMaS). He was Professor of Physics at Keele University and then at the University of Liverpool between 1987 and 2000, and Director General of the ESRF from 2001 until 2008. Bill was appointed ILL Director from 2014 to 2016.
2018 - Bill was awarded the IOP President's Medal for "services to physics, especially in the application of X-ray and neutron scattering, and in particular for his contributions at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and at the Institut Laue-Langevin, the French-German-British high-flux reactor centre, both in Grenoble"
More on this.
Since 2004, Bill has received many other prizes and honours not listed here.

Juan Colmenero de Léon
Much of the work honoured by the awarding of the 2017 Walter Hälg Prize to Juan Colmenero  was carried out at the ILL. E.g. the first proof of the quantum rotational tunneling of methyl groups in polymers and other disordered systems resulted from experiments on IN16 and IN5. Similarly, the determination of the relation between the stretched relaxation function and the momentum transfer dependence of the relaxation time was based, among other things, on data from IN16 and IN11.  ILL’s QENS instruments were also decisive for the other studies mentioned by the press release announcing the award.
Juan Colmenero  (UPV/EHU) started his first neutron scattering experiments at the ILL in 1988, extending and combining his previous studies of different spectroscopic methods (e.g. mechanical and broadband dielectric spectroscopy). His early work concerned relaxations in polymers and the glass transition but developed further to other complex soft matter systems. Juan was one of the first to combine his neutron scattering results with extensive MD simulations and dielectric spectroscopy, the latter both carried out at his home lab. His research group rapidly became one of the most active ILL user groups, making use of the full QENS instrument suite at the ILL from NSE and backscattering to time-of-flight (TOF), including polarisation studies on D7.
2017 - The Walter Hälg Prize was awarded to Juan for what was considered his most outstanding contribution in the field of neutron scattering on complex materials such as polymers or soft matter, namely "the creation of a pioneering, unique and robust scientific methodology based on the combination of neutron scattering with different spectroscopic methods and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. He was one of the first to recognize that in intricate soft matter systems often neutrons alone are not enough to tell us 'where the atoms are and what they do' and that neutron scattering and MD simulations are natural partners."

Helmut Rauch
Helmut was professor at the TU Wien but he collaborated for many years with the ILL. He was the creator of the CRG instrument S18, a neutron interferometer, and leader of the group of scientists and students who performed and still perform remarkable fundamental physics experiments on this unique instrument. Helmut was the PhD supervisor of Anton Zeilinger (Nobel Prize winner in 2022).
2015 - Helmut was awarded the ENSA Walter Hälg Prize for "his outstanding and seminal contributions to the fundamental aspects of neutron physics and optics and many related aspects of quantum physics".

Giuseppe (Jo) Zaccaï
Jo Zaccai’s work over the past 40 years has both contributed to and benefited from the remarkable synergies that characterize structural biology research in Grenoble. He has spent his career working first at ILL, as an ILL scientist, then as a CNRS scientist at IBS and, finally, as Senior Fellow for Biology back at ILL. Recruited in 1974, he built D16, the membrane diffractometer. He attracted students to neutron scattering in biology by introducing courses in the physics and biology departments and creating the DEA (Master's) course in biological crystallography at the University of Grenoble. He was part of the team that created the HERCULES training school for young European and non-European scientists. He also organised the re-opening of the IN13 spectrometer as a French-Italian CRG dedicated to biological molecular dynamics.
2013 - Jo was awarded the ENSA Walter Hälg Prize in recognition of "his pioneering contributions to the application of neutron scattering to a range of biophysical and biochemical problems in biology, which has provided important insights in the debate on the relationship between molecular structure and dynamics and biological function, and for his leading advocacy of the role of neutron scattering in biological research".

Gerry H. Lander
Gerry worked at the Argonne National Laboratory for 20 years, was Director of the IPNS neutron source (1981-1986) and Director of the Institute for Transuranium Elements (a European Commission Laboratory) in Karlsruhe. He first came to the ILL on a sabbatical in 1976 and although he was Instrument Responsible of D15 (single crystal neutron diffractomter, now decommissioned) for just 18 months, he is so often at the ILL that some people may think he is a member of ILL staff! Gerry's main interests are focussed on the science of actinide (5f electrons) elements and compounds. He has conducted experiments, and published articles, on 16 instruments at the ILL, a record unlikely to be equaled any time soon! He was also the founding editor of Neutron News.
2011 - Gerry was awarded the ENSA Walter Hälg Prize.

Juan Rodriguez Carvajal
Working at the ILL, then at the LLB, then again at the ILL, most of Juan's research work has been, and still is, devoted to producing software for X-ray and neutron diffraction, such as his famous FullProf Suite. Juan has an impressive list of papers to his name on strongly correlated electron systems, such as oxides and intermetallics, presenting novel structural and magnetic properties (exotic magnetic ordering, charge ordering, metal-insulator transitions, multiferroics, etc.), many of the papers with a high impact factor. He is the author of the ILL's most cited paper: “Recent Advances in Magnetic Structure Determination by Neutron Powder Diffraction”, Physica B 192, 55-69 (1993). DOI: 10.1016/0921-4526(93)90108-I
2008 - The EPDIC Award for Distinguished Powder Diffractionist was awarded to Juan for "outstanding results and/or continued, important contributions to the field of powder diffraction". DOI: 10.1524/zksu.2009.0078
2011 - Juan received the Barrett Award of the Denver X-ray Conference for “exceptional contributions to powder diffraction”.

Michael Marek Koza
Before joining the ILL as instrument scientist on the time-of-flight instrument IN6 (now SHARP) in 2000, Michael started his career studying morphous water ice phases at the University of Dortmund and the Technical University of Darmstadt and has continued this research not only at the ILL but also at other neutron sources and at the ESRF. He has since extended his scientific interest to thermoelectric materials. Today he is co-responsible on the time-of-flight spectrometer PANTHER.
2008 - Michael was awarded the Wolfram-Prandl-Prize for "his work on the structure and dynamics of amorphous ice phases".

Louis-Pierre Regnault
For many years Louis-Pierre Regnault was Instrument Responsible of IN22 - a CRG-B owned by the CEA - and made considerable improvements to this instrument (neutron resonance spin echo (NRSE), spherical polarization analysis (CRYOPAD), etc.).
2006 -  Louis-Pierre was awarded the Langevin prize of the French Académie des Sciences for "his work devoted to the study of electron systems strongly correlated by the inelastic scattering of neutrons. Louis-Pierre Regnault carried out pioneering work in the field of spin chains, notably the first experimental determination of a so-called "Haldane" gap in chains of integer spins as well as a remarkable diffraction study on the spin- Peierls of copper-germanium compounds under strong magnetic field and in the presence of silicon doping. Including his role in the study of superconductors at high critical temperatures and cuprate spin ladders, Louis-Pierre Regnault is unquestionably one of the best and most productive neutronicians in France."

Mike Pendlebury <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/23/mike-pendlebury>
In 1973, the UK decided to join forces with France and Germany in the operation of the high-flux reactor facility at the ILL. With Norman Ramsey’s encouragement, a new UCN source at ILL was designed and installed, and new precision experiments were conducted to investigate the fundamental properties of neutrons, in particular the neutron EDM. Mike’s work over a career spanning more than 50 years led to a series of precision measurements on the neutron EDM, increasing the sensitivity by a factor of 10 each decade. This work continues around the world with new measurements, at both the ILL and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Zurich, using apparatus and techniques designed, built and developed by Mike in the 1980s.
2003 - Mike was joint winner of the High Energy Particle Physics prize of the Institute of Physics.
2007 - Mike was joint winner of the Chadwick Medal for "his work on the neutron EDM".

Roger Arthur Cowley <https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.2017.0011>
Roger (University of Oxford, University of Edinburgh) made his name in the field of neutron scattering. This work led to the study of phase transitions. He himself (1974 to 2012) and his group were regular users of ILL instruments. He was a member of the Science Advisory Committees for the ILL.
2003 - Roger was awarded the ENSA Walter Hälg Prize .
He also received several other awards during his career.

Mechthild Enderle
Mechthild is responsible of instrument of the TAS spectrometer IN20. She developped PASTIS a magnetic device for wide-angle XYZ polarization analysis.
2002 - Mechthild was awarded the Wolfram-Prandl-Prize in recognition of "her excellent work on low-dimensional magnetic model systems. She studies quasi-one-dimensional Heisenberg systems with half- and integer spin, whereby the quantum character justifies large differences. For integer spin, she investigated the occurence of a Haldane gap in the excitation spectrum. In half-integer spin systems, ordered spin Peierls dimer states were found as the ground state with highly interesting excitations".

V.V. Nesvizhevsky, H.G. Börner, A.K. Petukhov and 8 non-ILL authors [5]
Here the award went to the team of the breakthrough experiment GRANIT I, an UCN (Ultra Cold Neutron) gravitational spectrometer.
2002 - The  First Prize of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research was awarded for the "Theoretical prediction and experimental study of quantum states of the neutron in the gravitational field of the Earth". This work was also selected as “Event of the Day in the World” by NASA on 21 January 2002; "3rd best work in Physics in the World" in 2002 by Chinese Academy of Sciences.
2002 - Valery Nesvizhevsky was also awarded the Hendrik de Waard prize for "The discovery of gravitational quantum states of particles", the best work of the year 2002 in the world in natural sciences.

Penelope Jane Brown <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope_Jane_Brown>
Jane arrived at the ILL in 1974, where she remained until 2012. During this time, she performed an impressive quantity of experimental work in neutron crystallography, in particular using polarised neutron diffraction techniques for measuring magnetisation densities. She participated in the development of spherical neutron polarimetry invented by F. Tasset. The main tool of this technique is the CRYOPAD (CRYOgenic Polarisation Analysis Device), a device which is now used in several neutron facilities.
2001 - Jane was awarded the ENSA Walter Hälg Prize in recognition of "her contributions to neutrons in Europe".
2002 - Jane was the first woman to win the Institute of Physics Michael Faraday Medal

©2000 ILL, A.Filhol

Julia S. Higgins
Julia was a physicist on the staff of ILL from 1973 to 1976. During that time she was a local contact for the SANS instrument D11 and her own research involved small angle scattering from polymers using D11 and quasi elastic scattering using IN5, IN10, and eventually IN11. In 1976 she left ILL and joined the academic staff in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London where she remained for the rest of her career. For many years after she moved to London her major research projects were based at ILL using all the small angle and quasi elastic scattering spectrometers as these subsequently developed. The number of here ILL papers is in excess of 70.
She got several awards all undoubtedly based on the work she carried out at ILL.
2001 - Dame of the British Empire (UK)
2003 - Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur (France)
2006 - Lauréate du Prix Holweck (a joint prize of the Institute of Physics (UK) and the French Physical Society)
2020 - Sam Edwards Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (UK) for which the citation was “For her pioneering work in neutron scattering applied to the understanding of polymer structure and dynamics”

Werner Heil
Werner (University of Mainz), together with colleagues from the ILL, developped the production of dense polarized ³He based on compression of optically pumped gas. This led to the development of efficient spin filters, which are one of the major tools for modern neutron physics, although Werner also applied this technique to medical tomography.
1998 - The Körber European Science prize was awarded to Werner in recognition of his work on magnetic resonance tomography with helium-3.

Anton Oed
Anton arrived at the ILL in 1974 and first worked on the ILL instrument Cosi Fan Tutte (PN8). In 1983, he became head of the ILL's neutron detector group together with Peter Geltenbort. The  Anton Oed prize was created in 2019 to honour his memory. The prize aims to promote an innovative spirit and the ability to solve technical challenges,
1997 - Anton was awadred the Robert Wichard Pohl medal by the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft for "the invention of the micro-strip gas chambers (MSGCs) at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in 1988. Their introduction was a decisive breakthrough in the field of radiation detectors. It demonstrated a significant gain in spatial resolution and counting rate, and the invention immediately stimulated the development of a new class of micro-pattern gas detectors (MPGDs)". See here for more details.

Marc de Boissieu
Marc was a PhD student at the ILL from 1987 to 1989, after which he joined the CNRS at the LTPCM (now SIMaP) in 1989, while still being very much involved in the ILL.
Marc first used powder diffraction (D2B) and contrast isomorphism proposed by Christian Janot and Jean-Marie Dubois to determine the structure of the icosahedral AlMnSi phase, with the help of Jean Pannetier. Using D4 data and the same method, he studied the short range order in quasicrystals. When the first single crystals became available, he studied their structure, phonons (TAS spectrometer IN8) and periodic approximants. He also worked on the stability of one of the type of quasicrystals, the icosahedral phase.
1992 - Marc was awarded the CNRSBronze medal (after leaving the ILL) for "being one of the main authors of the work carried out in Grenoble on quasicrystals. His name is attached in particular to the advances made by neutron scattering: position of atoms, description of vibrations, phase changes".

Christian Janot
Former Director of the Materials Physics Laboratory (Nancy), Christian performed an impressive quantity of work on quasicrystals and initiated their study by neutron diffraction. He performed the first ever studies on the atomic structure of these fascinating materials just after their discovery. From 1982 to 1991, Christian Janot was Senior Scientist at the ILL for small-angle scattering and inelastic time-of-flight scattering. He promoted the technique of neutron scattering in the national and international community of physicists and materials chemists. He also contributed to the organisation of the quasicrystal scientific community at European level.
1995 - Christian was awarded the Prix Aniuta Winter-Klein (Académie des Sciences, France) for "the determination of the atomic structure around the nodes of a quasi-crystal".
1995 - Christian recevied the Médaille Pierre Chevenard (Société Française de Métallurgie et de Matériaux, SF2M)

Reinhard Scherm
Reinhard arrived at the ILL in 1968, i.e. four years before the ILL reactor was completed. He is known, for example, for his neutron study of the dynamic properties of liquid helium-3 (a Fermi liquid) using neutron scattering. He was appointed ILL Associate Director (1992-1994) and Director (1994-1997).
1994 - Reinhard was awarded the Gentner-Kastler Preis (German Physical Society (DPG) and Société Française de Physique (SFP))

Jean Pannetier
Jean was Instrument Responsible of the neutron powder diffractometers D1B and D20. He developed the time-resolved neutron thermo-diffractometry (NTD) method consisting of the continuous data collection of diffraction patterns during the change of sample temperature. He contributed to both the development of the instrumental as well as the data treatment aspects of NTD. His most relevant contribution was the paper: “Structural and Electrochemical Properties of the proton - g-MnO₂ system”, Progress in Solid State Chemistry, 23, 1-130 (1995). DOI: 10.1016/0079-6786(94)00005-2
1994 - Jean was awarded the Prix Paul Pascal (Académie des Sciences, France) for "his study of magnetic solids, phase transitions and in situ chemical or electrochemical reactions by real-time neutron diffraction".

Walter Mampe
During his time at the ILL, Walter mainly worked on neutron physics experiments (helium-based ultra-cold neutron source, neutron microscope, measurement of the neutron charge, electric dipole moment and magnetic moment). He was one of the collaborators of the Nobel Prize winners C.G. Shull (1994) and A. Zeilinger (2022).
1991 - Walter shared the Stern-Gerlach Medal with Dirk Dubbers for "precision measurements of the weak coupling constant in beta decay". This is considered to be the most prestigious German award for experimental physicists,

Dietrich Jochen (Dirk) Dubbers
Dirk started work at the ILL as a post-doc from 1973 to 1975. He was appointed Senior Scientist (College 3) from 1985 to 1990, and ILL Director from 1999 to 2001. He performed many experiments and worked first on nuclear solid-state physics, then on the role of the neutron in particle physics and cosmology. He was the instigator of the Millennium Programme, which initiated the continuous improvement of ILL's infrastructure and instruments.
1991 - Dirk shared the  Stern-Gerlach Medal (with Walter Mampe), the most prestigious German award for experimental physicists, for "precision measurements of the weak coupling constant in beta decay".

Hans Börner
Hans arrived at the ILL in 1972 as a PhD student, helping with the construction of the gamma ray spectrometers GAMS 1 and GANS2/3 (PN3). From 1973 to 1978 - as a staff member of the IKP of the KFA Juelich, Germany - he was permanently seconded to the ILL. In 1978 he joined the ILL again directly and became Instrument Responsible of PN3 (staff scientist in 1979). In 1993 he became Head of the Nuclear and Particle Physics (NPP) group until his retirement in 2007.
1990 - Hans was awarded the Röntgen Prize in recognition of "his contributions to ultra-high resolution gamma spectroscopy with double-crystal spectrometers. This spectrometry became a key tool to better understand the structure of the atomic nucleus".

Heinz Maier-Leibnitz
Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, co-founder of the ILL, together with Louis Néel (Nobel Prize winner in 1970) and Jules Horowitz [1], was appointed ILL Director from 1967 to 1972. He introduced many innovations such as the neutron guide tubes [3] which greatly helped to make the ILL a success. He received many awards during the course of his career, of which we will mention only one:
1996 – Heinz Maier-Leibnitz was awarded the Stern-Gerlach-Medaille of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, the most prestigious German award for experimental physicists.

Roland Currat
Roland joined the ILL in 1970. He contributed to developing the 3-axis spectroscopic technique at ILL (IN8, IN14 now ThALES). He served as 3-axis Instrument Group Leader from 1994 until he retired in 2004. His scientific activities were centered on lattice dynamics and structural phase transitions in a variety of crystalline systems.
1989 - Roland was awarded the Prix Ancel (Société Française de Physique) for "his contribution to the characterization of the excitation spectrum of modulated crystals".

Sergei Vladimirovich Maleyev
Sergei Maleyev (Kurchatov institute, Gatchina) was the first scientist to formulate the general equations describing in detail polarised neutron scattering in different magnetic systems, including the well-known Maleyev-Dyson representation of spin operators. These are extremely important for many polarised neutron experiments performed at the ILL. From 1983 up to his death (2021), Sergei was in close contact with the ILL and its Russian colleagues in the framework of a broad set of neutron experiments on magnetic materials, notably in inhomogeneous, low-dimensional and chiral magnets.
He received several Russian awards (1986, USSR State Prize; 2013, Fock award; 2018, Medal of the ROSNEUTRO)

Ferenc Mezei
Ferenc was physicist at the ILL from 1972 to 1984, where he invented and developped the neutron supermirrors which are so important for modern neutron spectrometers, as well as neutron spin-echo spectroscopy, a very sensitive technique which makes it possible to observe very slow motions in matter (polymer reptation, glass transition,  etc.). Both are much praised and widely used worldwide.
1986 -  Ferenc was awarded the Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize for "the invention of neutron spin-echo spectroscopy"
1999 - Ferenc received the inaugural ENSA Walter Hälg Prize.
He has also received many other awards during his career to date.

Philippe Nozières
Philippe arrived at the ILL in 1972, where he worked on the theoretical physics of condenses matter. He remained at the ILL until his retirement in 2000. He was Head of the ILL Theory group for 30 years and also Professor at the Collège de France (1983), member of the French Académie des Sciences (from 1981) and member of the Amercian National Academy of Sciences (from 1991).
1985 - Philippe was awarded the Wolf prize, a prize often considered the most prestigious award in physics and chemistry after the Nobel Prize.
1988 - Philippe was CNRS gold medal winner, the highest scientific research award in France.

Dieter Richter
During his time at the ILL, Dieter (Forschungszentrum Jülich) mainly worked on the dynamics of polymers using Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) and neutron spin echo (NSE). For example, his work on IN11 demonstrated the validity of the reptation model of the Nobel Prize winner Pierre Gilles de Gennes [4]. Dieter was ILL Senior Scientist from 1985 to 1989 and in 1990 he worked for Jülich to finance in part the NSE instrument IN15. He received many awards, including:
1987 - theWalter Schottky Preis (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft)
2009 - the ENSA Walter Hälg Prize in recognition of "his coherent work towards understanding the dynamics of polymers and biological macromolecules using high-resolution neutron scattering techniques"

<linxs.se/people-ii/dieter-richter-tsfk2>

Paul Ageron
The engineer Paul Ageron was involved in the project to create the ILL right from the outset and his contribution to the success of the ILL is outstanding. For example, it was Paul who designed the installation of beam tubes in the D₂O vessel of the high-flux reactor. He also designed or helped design the ILL cold sources and UCN sources (PN5 and PF2) and storage devices, among other things. At the ILL, he was famous for his ability to calculate in his head the right orders of magnitude, even for the most complex problems.
1986 - Paul received the Prix Foucault (SFP) which rewards work in applied physics
1996 - Paul was awarded the Prix Frank (Dubna)

Heinz Jürgen Schulz
When at the ILL (1982-1985) H.J. Schulz performed an impressive theoretical work on the physics of quasi-one-dimenasional organic conductors and superconductors. His main contribution were on the band structure anisotropie, the commensurate-incommensurate transitions the superconductivity mechanism, in these compounds.
1982 - Heinz was awarded the Gay-Lussac-Humboldt Prize created by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and his counterpart Chancellor Helmut Schmidt

Bernard Jacrot
Bernard was the ILL's first French Associate Director (1967-1973) and co-founder of the ILL, together with Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, Louis Néel (Nobel Prize winner in 1970) and Jules Horowitz [1]. Before taking up this position, he was one of the French pioneers in neutron scattering and went on to initiate neutron biology at the ILL, for example using SANS (small-angle neutron scattering) to obtain the low resolution structure of viruses and other biological entities [2].
1980 - Bernard was awarded the Felix Robin prize of the French Société Française de Physique in recognition of "his lifetime achievement in physics"