| Citation | George Sawatztky has made major contributions to the understanding of the important transition metal oxides and more generally strongly correlated electron systems. He has initiated new spectroscopic experimental methods to study these materials, applied them to transition metal compounds of interest and developed the theoretical interpretation of these spectroscopies. He has pioneered the use of cluster diagonalization methods to describe the electronic structure of transition metal compounds as well as the spectroscopic results obtained on these compounds. The understanding of many widely used methods such as x-ray absorbtion, magnetic x-ray dichroism, Auger spectroscopy and various forms of resonant x-ray scattering rests largely on the work of Sawatzky and collaborators. |