Prof. Tomasz Dietl wins Japanese award

Professor Tomasz Dietl, an employee of the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, has been awarded the Japanese International Tohoku University Prize. The award recognizes individuals who have contributed to the university's international recognition.

The award for the outstanding Polish physicist was announced in a statement sent to PAP on Friday by the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IF PAN).

Prof. Dietl is the head of the International Center for Interfacing Magnetism and Superconductivity with Topological Matter – MagTop. As stated in the Japanese university's Special Award nomination, which honored the researcher, cited in the announcement, Prof. Dietl "is an internationally respected theoretical physicist, known for his work in the field of spintronics and topological materials" and "has played a key role in the development of spintronics research" at the university.

Spintronics (spin electronics, magnetronics) is a field of electronics. In traditional integrated circuits, information is carried by changes in current flow; in spintronics, the spin (angular momentum) of the electron is also taken into account.

The nomination emphasized that Prof. Dietl's 2000 article in the journal Science, in which he proposed the theory of ferromagnetism in dilute magnetic semiconductors, is "the most frequently cited publication in the history of Tohoku University" (9,910 citations as of April 30, 2025). It added that the total number of citations for the award winner is over 35,000.

The scientist has been a professor at the Research Institute of Electrical Communication at Tohoku University since 1999, and served as principal investigator at the Advanced Institute for Materials Research there from 2012 to 2023. As noted in Prof. Dietl's nomination for the award, he was also heavily involved in the international GP-Spin doctoral program.

Tohoku is one of Japan's leading and most prestigious public universities, with over 15,000 students. The Tohoku University International Award, which began in 2022, recognizes individuals associated with the university who have "significantly contributed to increasing its international recognition."

The press release recalled that Prof. Dietl was the founder and head of the Cryogenics and Spintronics Research Laboratory at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and has led its research team since 1986. The researcher has been a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1998, and in 2002 was elected to the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Commission on Low Temperature Physics. He is a recipient of awards including the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Prize in Poland (1997), the Alexander von Humboldt Scientific Award in Germany (2003), and the Agilent Technologies European Physics Prize (2005). In 2010, the Professor received the Marian Smoluchowski Medal of the Polish Physical Society, and in 2013, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

The Tohoku University International Award – Special Award ceremony will take place on October 11 at the university in Sendai during Graduate Day. (PAP)

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