Gen Shirane

Gen Shirane (kanji: 白根 元 Shirane Gen; furigana: しらね げん; May 15, 1924 in Nishinomiya, Japan – 16 January 16, 2005 in Bellport, New York) was a Japanese-American experimental solid-state physicist, known for his investigations using neutron scattering as a probe of solids. He lived most of his life in the USA.

Biography At the University of Tokyo, Shirane received his BE in engineering physics in 1944 and his DSc in physics in 1947 with a thesis on ferroelectrics.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Shirane with co-workers confirmed the soft mode theory of P. W. Anderson and W. Cochran and discovered new features of structural phase transitions beyond the soft mode theory.

Shirane was a leading international authority on neutron spectroscopy in solid-state physics, including magnetic materials and high-Tc superconductivity. He trained many younger physicists in neutron scattering and effectively promoted collaborations between Japan and the USA. He was the author or co-author of over 750 scientific publications with nearly 40,000 citations by the year of his death. His h-index was 103.

Awards and honors 1973 — Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize, American Physical Society 1973 — Warren Award of the American Crystallographic Association 1989 — Member of the National Academy of Sciences 1989 — DOE Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Solid State Physics 1991 — Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2003 — Award for Outstanding Accomplishment, Japanese Society for Neutron Science Dover reprint, 1993 with Stephen M. Shapiro and John M. Tranquada: