This prestigious ICSE Award is named in honor of the physicist Paul Karl Ludwig Drude (1863-1906), a pioneer of ellipsometry. Reflecting Drude's oeuvre related to the electron-conductivity model, emphasis is placed on spectroscopically determining and understanding the interaction of light with matter. The Award is given to young scientists who has made outstanding contributions to the development and application of spectroscopic ellipsometry.

The ICSE-9 Paul Drude Award will be split. Two winners have been selected in equal first place by the Selection Committee, composed by members from the Honorary, Advisory, and Organizing Committees. The Paul Drude Award consist of a certificate, a prism, and a monetary price of 1000 EUR. For ICSE-9, the Award is sponsored by Wuhan Eoptics Technology Co. Ltd.

The Award winners are:

Honggang Gu

Dr. Honggang Gu is currently an assistant professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. He receives the ICSE-9 Paul Drude Award for his contribution to the development of advanced Mueller matrix ellipsometry (MME), such as broadband MME based on dual rotating multi-waveplates with flexibly oriented axes and imaging MME with sub-micro resolution based on back focal plane scanning. He has also made very impressive pioneering explorations to promote the application of SE in emerging 2D materials and organic semiconductors.

Alyssa Mock

Dr. Alyssa Mock is currently an assistant professor at Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, USA. She receives the ICSE-9 Paul Drude Award for her pioneering work on generalized ellipsometric analysis of ultra-wide bandgap metal oxides with low-crystal symmetry. She has also worked to uncover the stress and strain relationships within low symmetry materials to provide a pathway to use ellipsometry in understanding of how these low symmetry materials behave under the influence of perturbations due to strain or stress.