Shull, Clifford Glenwood

▪ 2002

      American physicist (b. Sept. 23, 1915, Pittsburgh, Pa.—d. March 31, 2001, Medford, Mass.), shared the 1994 Nobel Prize for Physics for his development of neutron-scattering techniques—in particular, neutron diffraction, a process that enabled scientists to better explore the atomic structure of matter. He shared the prize with Canadian physicist Bertram N. Brockhouse, who conducted separate but concurrent work in the field. After graduating from New York University with a Ph.D. in 1941, Shull began a career as a research physicist. His award-winning work was completed at Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratory from 1946 to 1955. In Shull's technique of neutron diffraction, a beam of single-wavelength neutrons was passed through the solid or liquid material under study. Neutrons interacting with atoms of the target material were scattered into a pattern that, when recorded on photographic film, yielded information about the relative positions of atoms in the material. Shull was also one of the first to demonstrate a way to use neutron scattering to study the structure of magnetic materials. From 1955 until his retirement in 1986, he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Shull was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

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