艾伦·麦克唐纳1951—

麦克唐纳生于加拿大新斯科舍省安提戈尼什，1973年在圣弗朗西斯·泽维尔大学获得学士学位。1978年在多伦多大学完成了物理学博士课程，跟随S.H.Vosko合作研究密度泛函理论的相对论推广，以及密度泛函理论在金属磁性中的应用。后曾在加拿大国家研究委员会渥太华实验室（1978-1987）和印第安纳大学（1987-2000）工作。也曾在苏黎世的瑞士联邦理工学院和德国斯图加特的马克斯·普朗克固态研究所担任访问学者。

Allan H. MacDonald (born December 1, 1951) is a theoretical condensed matter physicist and the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair Professor of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests are centered on the electronic properties of electrons in metals and semiconductors. He is well known for his work on correlated many-electron states in low-dimensional systems. In 2020, he became one of the laureates of the Wolf Prize in Physics, for predicting the magic angle that turns twisted bilayer graphene into a superconductor.

Education and early life

He was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, and attended local schools completing a B.S. at St. Francis Xavier University in 1973. He completed his Ph.D.in physics at the University of Toronto in 1978, working with S.H. Vosko on relativistic generalizations of density functional theory, and on the application of density functional theory to magnetism in metals.

Research and career

Prior to joining the University of Texas, he worked at the Ottawa laboratory of the National Research Council Canada (1978–1987) and at Indiana University (1987–2000). He has held visiting positions at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany.

MacDonald's research has focused on new or unexplained phenomena related to the quantum physics of interacting electrons in materials. He has contributed to theories of the integer and fractional quantum Hall effects, spintronics in metals and semiconductors, topological Bloch bands and momentum-space Berry curvature phenomena, correlated electron-hole fluids and exciton and polariton condensates, and two-dimensional materials.

Honors and awards

MacDonald received the Canadian Association of Physicists's Herzberg Medal in 1987, the Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society in 2007 with James P. Eisenstein and Steven Girvin, the Ernst Mach Honorary Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences in 2012, and the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2020 with Bistritzer and Jarrillo-Herrero. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005 and the National Academy of the Sciences in 2010. He was named a 2024 Citation Laureate by Clarivate. In 2026, MacDonald and Jarillo-Herrero were named winners of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of "Basic Sciences". Also in 2026 he received the Kavli Prize in the category of "Nanoscience", along with Jarillo-Herrero and Eva Andrei.

Personal life

MacDonald is the second of eight children of David Roy (Jack) MacDonald and Elizabeth Jean (Betty) Sears. He grew up in Antigonish, Nova Scotia in the 1950s and 1960s, a town of 5000 people dominated at the time by 18th and 19th century Scottish and Irish immigrants. His namesake grandfather was a coal miner in New Waterford, N.S. and his mother was the daughter of a prominent local businessman and a graduate of Columbia University who wanted her children to be unafraid of the world 'from away.' MacDonald married Susan Wayling in Jimtown, Antigonish County, N.S. in 1974. They have two children, Erin (born 1977) and Brendan (born 1978) and four grandchildren living in Austin and San Francisco. Allan and Susan maintain a seasonal residence in Jimtown overlooking St. George's Bay - the backdrop of their summer days from youth to old age.

Select publications

MacDonald, AH; Vosko, SH (August 14, 1979). "A relativistic density functional formalism". Journal of Physics C: Solid State Physics. 12 (15): 2977. Bibcode:1979JPhC...12.2977M. doi:10.1088/0022-3719/12/15/007.

MacDonald, AH; Picket, WE; Koelling, DD (May 20, 1980). "A linearised relativistic augmented-plane-wave method utilising approximate pure spin basis functions". Journal of Physics C: Solid State Physics. 13 (14): 2675. Bibcode:1980JPhC...13.2675M. doi:10.1088/0022-3719/13/14/009.

Girvin, SM; MacDonald, Allan H; Platzman, PM (February 15, 1986). "Magneto-roton theory of collective excitations in the fractional quantum Hall effect". Physical Review B. 33 (4): 2481–2494. Bibcode:1986PhRvB..33.2481G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.33.2481. PMID 9938586.

MacDonald, Allan H; Girvin, Steven M; Yoshioka, D (June 1, 1988). "t/U expansion for the Hubbard model". Physical Review B. 37 (16): 9753–9756. Bibcode:1988PhRvB..37.9753M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.37.9753. PMID 9944372.