Laurence Eaves was elected an Honorary Fellow of the College in 2013 in recognition of his distinguished contribution to the study and application of Physics. He studies the electronic and optical properties of semiconductor devices and materials, including graphene. He has also undertaken experiments using high magnetic fields to investigate quantum chaotic phenomena and the hydrodynamics of spinning and vibrating liquid droplets which are diamagnetically levitated by a strong magnetic field. In addition to his primary research, he has a amateur interest in developments in cosmology. The present focus of his work is the way in which electrons move and scatter in graphene field effect transistors.

Following studies and research appointments at the University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the Physics Department at the University of Nottingham in 1976, where he is currently a Research Professor. Since 2012, he has also been working as Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester on graphene transistors with Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. Laurence has served on numerous committees of the Royal Society, the Leverhulme Trust, the International Union of Physics and Applied Physics and the HEFCE RAE2008 and REF2014 physics sub-panels.

Sir Nevill Mott was one of the outstanding British condensed matter theorists and won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977.  He died in 1996. The Nevill Mott Medal and Prize, awarded by the Institute of Physics, was first established in 1997 thanks to a donation by Sir Nevill’s family. The award is for distinguished research in condensed matter or materials physics and consists of a silver medal, showing the image of Sir Nevill Mott, and a prize of £1000.