U of T professor wins prestigious Canadian science award

March 26, 2008

Canadian Nobel Laureate John Polanyi, whose chemical reaction research looks to lead industry from an age of microelectronics to an age of nanoelectronics, was awarded the prestigious Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering.

The distinction, awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), was based on the University of Toronto professor’s extensive body of research and more than 50 years of contributions to science and society.

After sharing the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for trailblazing a path to chemical lasers, he continues to make important breakthroughs, such as developing molecular patterns on silicon wafers—patterns in which the spacing of the elements in the pattern are measured in molecular dimensions, giving them 1,000 times the compaction of circuitry.

“You can control [the motion of chemical reactions] so that you get a patterned chemical reaction with a surface, and the surface we’ve been working on is silicon, which has such a huge commercial application,” Polanyi said of his most recent research initiatives.

The current field of study is ‘molecular-scale patterning of surfaces through controlled chemical reaction,’ which is the result of a question Polanyi addressed early on in his research and is still working on: What sort of molecular collisions end in reactions? “We started by studying this in gases and even made a film showing the choreography of chemical reactions: how molecules approach, exchange partners and separate.”

Most recently, Polanyi’s research has treaded into an area with applications toward nanotechnology.

“We switched to studying not reactions in gases but reaction on surfaces, where there is much current interest since we want to build devices (commercial or otherwise), in the future, at molecular size on surfaces,” he said. “We’re trying to improve our understanding of the motion of molecules when they attach to a surface in order to control those motions in such a way that you get a patterned reaction with a surface.”

These molecular patterns conduct electricity, hence provide circuitry; this offers the likelihood, over a decade, of computers 1,000 times more compact than at present. He says such innovations could then be inserted into the human body, such as by injection.

Polanyi, left, with Queen Elizabeth II in Ottawa in 1967. (Photo from Polanyi's U of T Homepage)

Polanyi was educated at Manchester University in England and was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University in the U.S. However, his first academic appointment was “at the bottom to the academic ladder” at the University of Toronto, where he’s been ever since. “So to get what is regarded as a major Canadian award is a very nice thing,” he said modestly, appreciating being recognized by his own compatriots and colleagues.

The chemistry professor’s long list of honours includes being named an Officer, and then a Companion, of the Order of Canada, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of London. He is a founding member of both the Committee on Scholarly Freedom of the Royal Society and the Canadian Committee for Scientists and Scholars, a human rights organization of which he is president.

Named for Canadian Nobel Laureate Gerhard Herzberg, the annual prize guarantees the winner $1 million in research funding over the next five years. The other finalists for the NSERC Herzberg Medal are Dr. Gilles Brassard of the Universite de Montreal and Dr. Graham Bell of McGill University. They will each receive a $50,000 research grant. As first-time finalists, Dr. Polanyi and Dr. Bell will also receive the NSERC Award of Excellence.
www.nserc.gc.ca/herzberg/e