| Citation | Distinguished for his contributions to low temperature physics, in particular superconducting tunnelling and its applications. Rowell made the first observation of the Josephson effect, in association with P.W. Anderson, and noted its extreme sensitivity to magnetic fields, later utilised in interference devices (SQUIDS). He was granted the first patent describing the use of Josephson junctions as logic and memory devices, a topic presently being pursued in Japan.
With theoretical collaborators Rowell converted the tunnelling characteristics of normal metal-superconducting tunnel junctions into a quantitative spectroscopic technique for the investigation of electron-phonon coupling. This techniwue has been widely exploited and has now been applied to numerous systems. This resulted in Rowell and the late W.L. McMillan being awarded the 1978 Fritz London memorial Prize for Low Temperature Physics. Rowell and his group have contributed to the technology of Josephson junctions and have investigated phonon spectra in metallic superlattices. More recently his group pioneered studies of localisation and the metal-insulator transition in thin metal films and co-deposited metallic mixtures, systems which are now extensively used in this field. |