11/1/2022 Jenny Applequist for MRL
The award recognizes his decades of achievements in materials science at UIUC.
Written by Jenny Applequist for MRL
Over more than half a century of major contributions in crystal growth, thin-film physics, and surface science, Joe Greene grew to become one of the most prominent and respected researchers in his field. Just days before his October 10 passing, “in recognition and acknowledgement of his lifetime achievements in materials science,” he was honored by the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) with its 2022 Jan Czochralski Award.
The award is named after one of Poland’s most famous scientists, who, in 1916, developed the Czochralski method for pulling single crystals out of a melt. Since 2004, the E-MRS has honored one materials scientist with the award each year.
Past recipients have included such luminaries as Mildred Dresselhaus, George M. Whitesides, and Nobel Prize winner Shuji Nakamura.
“This award is a recognition for Joe’s work at MRL, MatSE, CSL, and The Grainger College of Engineering,” noted Ivan Petrov, Greene’s longtime friend and colleague on the UIUC faculty.
The honor was announced on September 21 during the 2022 E-MRS Fall Meeting in Warsaw, Poland. Because of Greene’s ill health, the award was accepted on his behalf by Lars Hultman of Linköping University, Sweden. Hultman also presented a plenary talk, prepared by him and Petrov, on the significance of Greene’s work.
Lars Hultman presenting highlights of Greene's research achievements at the E-MRS 2022 Fall Meeting in Warsaw, Poland. The slide is on the so-called "Greene alloys."
The week before Greene’s passing, Petrov delivered the gold medal and certificate to him in person.
In a letter to the chair of E-MRS 2022, Greene’s wife, Phyllis, said that “Joe felt very honored and thrilled that he had been chosen to be the recipient of the Jan Czochralski Award.”
An emeritus professor of Materials Science & Engineering and Physics, Greene was a longtime Coordinated Science Laboratory researcher, and, from 1999 to 2004, the Director of the Materials Research Laboratory.
The focus of Greene’s decades of fruitful research was on the development of atomic-level understanding of adatom/surface interactions during the dynamic process of vapor-phase crystal growth to enable controllable manipulation of nanochemistry, nanostructure, and, hence, physical properties of materials. In particular, he used hyperthermal condensing species and UV photochemistry to probe and stimulate surface reactions that do not proceed thermally. With this approach, he created a range of novel epitaxial metastable materials with applications in both the semiconductor and hard coatings industries.