The Ström-Olsen lecture

In 2014 the Centre for Physics of Materials decided to establish a series of distinguished annual theoretical and experimental lectures. The experimental Ström-Olsen lecture is named after John Ström-Olsen, an experimental condensed matter physicist who played a key role in establishing the condensed matter group at McGill among his many other contributions.

Short Bio of John O. Ström-Olsen:

John Ström-Olsen is an experimental physicist, a long-time Professor of Physics at McGill University, former Chair of the Department, and now an Emeritus Professor. He had a major impact on the Department, being instrumental in the growth of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics at McGill through the 1980s and 1990s. He is best known for his work on amorphous metals and on metal hydrides for hydrogen storage. In 1996 he founded a manufacturing company (MXT Inc.) of which he is still the CEO.

John received his university degrees in Cambridge, where he took classes, among others, from Paul Dirac. He did his PhD under the supervision of Sir Brian Pippard, who is well known for his seminal work on superconductivity. After he obtained his PhD in 1966, he moved to North America and joined the department of Physics at McGill as an assistant professor in 1969.

His research at McGill spanned thirty-five years, contributing principally to the transport, magnetic and structural properties of metals and alloys. His work in the area of amorphous metals focused not only on understanding the properties of these novel materials, but also on showing how they could be exploited to shed light on the fundamental properties of condensed system such as the effect of atomic two-level-systems on low-temperature electrical conductivity, the influence of spin-fluctuations on superconductivity, the effect of structural disorder on the magnetic ground state of Fe, scaling behavior in the conductivity of disordered conductors, and stringent tests of the theories of quantum corrections to the electrical conductivity of three dimensional conductors due to high structural disorder. His more recent research on nanocrystalline metal hydrides for hydrogen storage has attracted attention by showing how structure, catalysis and nano-scale atomic reactions can be used separately or in combination to tailor metal hydrides to specific applications. In particular the work at McGill showed for the first time how the light element Mg (which can store up to 8 wt.% hydrogen) could be developed as a practical storage medium

John's research has had a considerable impact on the research community as evidenced by his more than 200 scientific publications with close to 7,000 citations. In addition as co-inventor on 19 patents he has been involved in a significant transfer of technology to industry including providing the core technology to two Montreal-based start-ups, Hera Hydrogen and MXT Inc., and he also trained many students who went on to subsequently successful careers in industry.