Pisin Chen Wins Chandrasekhar Prize
The Division of Plasma Physics under the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS-DPP) has selected Pisin Chen as the 11th Laureate of the Chandrasekhar Prize of Plasma Physics.
The prize is awarded to scientists who have made seminal contributions in the field of plasma physics. Prof. Chen was awarded the prize for "advancing the understanding of collective interaction in fundamental plasma physics, including the invention of plasma wakefield accelerators and its acceleration and focusing processes."
Professor Pisin Chen is internationally recognized as the inventor of the plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) concept in 1985. In this paper, he and co-authors demonstrated that a relativistic charged particle beam traversing a plasma can be equally effective in exciting plasma waves as that by a laser pulse (LWFA), which was proposed by Tajima and Dawson in 1979. By now, LWFA and PWFA have become the two major plasma accelerator schemes under active pursuit worldwide. Historically, the term "plasma wakefield" was born because of the PWFA invention. The concept of PWFA, and its first demonstration, was achieved in the 1980s, explored in the decades since, and today, a vibrant community drives forward their development and exploitation at numerous smaller, medium-sized and large laboratories, including at CERN.