| Citation | Softley is internationally renowned for the originality, vision and sheer intellectual depth of his experimental and theoretical contributions to many areas of chemical physics and the novel insights and new possibilities they have created. He has developed wide-ranging studies of highly excited atomic and molecular "Rydberg" states, particularly their disturbance by weak electric fields, and their interaction with other molecules in the gas phase and with thin film, semiconductor and nanostructured surfaces. They have led to new ways of investigating the dynamics of quantum state selected ion-molecule chemical reactions, e.g., the proton transfer, H2+ + H2 -> H3+ + H, the most abundant reaction in interstellar space, and the control of charge transfer from Rydberg atoms to surfaces through the spatial polarization of their electron distribution. He is recognised as one of the world leaders in the burgeoning field of ultracold chemistry and has developed many unique experiments, including new ways of creating translationally cold atoms and molecules, the reaction of molecular beams with "Coulomb crystals" of metal ions held at 10 mK, and the unique combination of two cold molecule sources to allow the dynamics of ion-molecule chemical processes to be studied for the first time at temperatures below 1K. |