Learn More About Physics

Canadian physicist Bertram Brockhouse won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1994. Brockhouse used neutron scattering to study atomic structure and movement.
Bertram N. Brockhouse (1918-2003), Canadian physicist and Nobel Prize winner. He helped to develop the technique of neutron scattering to study atomic structure and movement in various materials. He shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in physics with American physicist Clifford G. Shull for this work.

Brockhouse attended the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto in 1950. For more than a decade, he conducted nuclear-reactor research at the Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario. In 1962 he joined the faculty of McMaster University, also in Ontario, and remained there until retirement. He became professor emeritus in 1984.

Building on the work of Clifford Shull and other scientists who first developed neutron-scattering techniques, Brockhouse designed a new instrument for neutron-scattering research. Neutron scattering is based on the fact that beams of neutrons can pass readily into a substance, much as X rays can. The neutrons are scattered, or diffracted, by the atoms in the substance. By measuring the neutron change, scientists can gather information about a substance's atomic structure. Brockhouse designed an instrument called a triple-axis spectrometer, which can measure the energy and momentum of the neutrons as they enter and leave the sample substance. This allowed him to gather data about vibrations and other movements of the atoms within the substance, ultimately providing information about the substance's physical properties. His instrument is still widely used in neutron-scattering studies, which have applications in biology, chemistry, materials science, and engineering. Polymers, semiconductors, and superconductors are just three of the many materials analyzed and developed with the help of neutron-scattering techniques. Brockhouse's work is also credited with helping to form the basis of modern solid-state physics, also known as condensed-matter physics.