Robert Coleman Richardson

Robert Coleman Richardson (1937–2013) was an American experimental physicist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering superfluidity in helium-3.

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David Lee: David Morris Lee is an American physicist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering helium-3 superfluidity. Lee was Richardson’s Cornell collaborator and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize.
Helium-3: Helium-3 is a stable helium isotope with two protons and one neutron in its nucleus. Its unusual nuclear spin and fermionic statistics enable the pairing behind the discovery.
Cornell University: Cornell University is a private research university in Ithaca, New York. Richardson’s helium-3 experiments took place in Cornell’s low-temperature physics laboratory.
1996 Nobel Prize in Physics: The 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics honored David Lee, Douglas Osheroff, and Robert Richardson for discovering superfluidity in helium-3. This award recognized the specific experimental achievement Richardson shared with Lee and Osheroff.
Douglas Osheroff: Douglas Dean Osheroff is an American physicist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering helium-3 superfluidity. Osheroff, then a graduate student, detected the transitions that launched the discovery.
Superfluidity: Superfluidity is a state of matter that flows without ordinary viscosity and displays macroscopic quantum behavior. The helium-3 transition established a new, unconventional realization of this broader phenomenon.
Pomeranchuk cooling: Pomeranchuk cooling is a technique that cools liquid helium-3 through adiabatic compression and expansion. The cooling method made it possible to reach the temperatures where the anomalous transitions appeared.
Superconductivity: Superconductivity is the state in which a material conducts electricity without resistance and expels magnetic fields. The helium-3 discovery gave physicists a neutral-atom counterpart to paired-electron superconductivity.
John Reppy: John Reppy is an American experimental physicist known for research on helium and low-temperature phenomena. Reppy led the Cornell low-temperature laboratory where Richardson’s team worked.
Cooper pairing: Cooper pairing is the formation of bound pairs of fermions that can produce a coherent quantum state. Pairs of helium-3 atoms underpin its superfluid phase despite their fermionic nature.