Professor Séamus Davis awarded prestigious Faraday Prize

Professor J.C. Séamus Davis has been awarded the 2026 Michael Faraday Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics (IOP), one of the most prestigious honours in physics.

The Michael Faraday Medal and Prize is awarded for exceptional achievements in experimental physics, and commemorates the legacy of Michael Faraday, whose pioneering work laid the foundations for modern electromagnetism and information technology. The prize will be awarded on Tuesday 3 November 2026 at the IOP Awards Dinner in Glasgow.

Throughout his career, Professor Davis has combined scientific insight with technological innovation, developing groundbreaking physics instruments and techniques that make it possible to visualise and interrogate quantum phenomena with unprecedented precision. Professor Davis’ achievements include the invention of advanced microscopic instruments that provide imaging of quantum matter at levels never seen before.

“We invented new instruments to visualise materials at a quantum level. Before, we pictured in our minds what we believed quantum matter looked like, but we never knew for sure as we could never see it,” Professor Davis explained. “Our instruments are like a superpower that have revolutionised how we see quantum matter and with them we have discovered that a large number of our assumptions were not correct, that the quantum world is more complex than our models suggested,” he said.

A key component of Ireland’s quantum strategy for 2030, Prof Davis says advances in AI are now assisting in new discoveries in quantum physics. Looking to the future of quantum physics discovery, Professor Davis said the advancements in artificial intelligence will build upon the foundations set by his advanced microscopy techniques. His instruments are producing huge amounts of data, which A.I. are now beginning to assist in parsing for new discoveries.

“We can use A.I. to explore our quantum imaging information. The amount of data we produce with our instruments is huge, going over all of it alone would be almost impossible. Imagine taking ten million photographs of the night sky, and trying to identify all the stars you see in each image, that is the scale of the challenge we face,” Professor Davis said. “However by uploading all this data for A.I. analysis we can confirm theories and make new discoveries. In the past three months alone we have made two major discoveries, with A.I. speeding up the process and analysing in days the kind of large data sets that would take humans years to assess on their own. This is the new frontier in quantum physics.”

Many congratulations to Professor Davis on this wonderful achievement.