Yoshiaki Kato Award 2024

During the IUPAP ICUIL 2024 Conference on the Island of Cozumel in Mexico, the Yoshiaki Kato Award was awarded for the first time. This honour was bestowed on Professor Ulrich Schramm from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden - Rossendorf, Germany. Ulrich Schramm received this award for his ground breaking scientific achievements in laser particle acceleration and its applications.

Ulrich Schramm’s group in collaboration with M.E. Couprie’s team from Synchrotron SOLEIL in France were the first to demonstrate a seeded Free Electron Laser (FEL) driven by a laser wakefield electron accelerator. His group’s very successful work on laser ion acceleration leading to world record proton energies has culminated in a first demonstration of treated cancer in an animal model with laser-accelerated protons of high pulse dose rate. This experiment required a laser proton accelerator and transport system with unprecedented reliability to meet the radiation biology requirements of the medical community. These ambitious and innovative experiments relied on the persistent and combined improvement of drive laser and plasma accelerator performance in Ulrich Schramm’s group over the last decade.

With these achievements, Ulrich Schramm and his team have paved the way to novel smaller scale FELs and innovative new approaches to radiation biology and potential future therapy of cancer.