Börje Johansson

Professor Emeritus Börje Johansson earned the Degree of Licenciate in Theoretical Nuclear Physics in 1965 from Stockholm University. Four years later, when he was 26 years old he was awarded his PhD in Theoretical Physics (Condensed Matter) from the same university. In 1963-1979 he worked at the Swedish  Defence Research Agency (FOI). Between 1980 and 1988, he served as a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. In 1987, he returned to Sweden to take up a professorship at the Department of Physics, Uppsala University.

In 1997, Professor Johansson was elected as member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA). He received the prestigious Celsius Medal, the highest honor awarded by the Royal Society of Sciences, in 2000. In 2001, he was recognized as an Excellent Researcher by the Swedish Research Council and became a member—and later Chair—of the Nobel Prize Committee for Physics.

Among his other accolades, he received the Björkén Prize, Uppsala University's most prestigious award in science, in 2004. Since 2008, he has been a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).

Johansson was among the first few to be awarded an ERC Grant (2008). In 2017 Johansson was given the Humboldt Senior Research Award.

Professor Johansson also holds honorary professorships at several universities, including Tsinghua University (Beijing), Dalian University of Technology (DUT, Dalian), Vienna University of Technology (Vienna, Austria), Moscow State University of Technology (Moscow) and Huazhong Normal University (Wuhan).

In 2000, he was appointed Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, further broadening his academic impact.

Over the course of his distinguished career, he has supervised approximately 50 PhD students and mentored more than 50 postdoctoral researchers. More than 30 of these 100 scholars are now professors at Swedish or international universities. Professor Johansson's research focuses on achieving a fundamental understanding of the behavior of technologically significant systems. By employing advanced theoretical methods, he has explored their electronic, magnetic, and atomic structures, contributing significantly to materials science and condensed matter physics. In particular he has studied fundamental properties of rare-earth and actinide materials. He -against the international wisdom- predicted a new elemental superconductor (later confirmed experimentally). At about the same time, he formulated a new theoretical explanation of the highly anomalous isostructural volume collapse in cerium metal. He then used this theory to deepen the understanding of the relationship between the lanthanide and actinide metals. In addition, he has formulated a successful theory for the chemical shifts of core level energies measured in photo-electron spectroscopy (ESCA).

After returning from Denmark to Sweden Prof. Johansson was elected to be a member of the board of NFR (later VR) and as such he was heavily engaged in the establishment of the synchroton light source Max and later in the development of the now well-known Max IV Laboratory in Lund. In the important initial phase Johansson contributed a lot to the establishment of the international neutron Laboratory ESS in Lund. Through his position in VR Johansson could also strongly support the introduction of the concept of Materials Consortia in Sweden. This gave a substantial contribution to materials science and condensed matter physics in Sweden.

Over the years Johansson has from his involvement in NFR and VR, given strong support to supercomputing in Sweden. His efforts  resulted in the decision that the National Supercomputer Center (NSC) was placed and financed in Linköping.

Professor Johansson is a prolific scientist, having published over 1100 research articles in refereed international journals, of which 57 are in Physical Review Letters. Many of the publications stand out for their groundbreaking contributions to the field:

Older Contributions:

1) Johansson, B. The α-γ transition in cerium is a Mott transition. Philosophical Magazine 30, 469 (1974).

2) Johansson, B.: Energy position of the 4f level in rare-earth metals. Phys. Rev. B 20, 1315 (1979).

3) Johansson, B. and Mårtensson, N.:  Core-level binding-energy shifts for the metallic elements. Phys. Rev. B 21, 4427 (1980).

4) Johansson, B. and Rosengren, A.: Generalized phase diagram for the rare-earthl elements: Calculations and correlations of bulk properties. Phys. Rev. B 11, 2836 (1975).

More recent contributions:

1. van Schilfgaarde, M; Abrikosov, IA; Johansson, B: Origin of the Invar Effect in iron-nickel alloys.  Nature 400, 46 (1999)

2. N.V. Skorodumova, S.I. Simak, B.I. Lundqvist, I.A. Abrikosov, and B. Johansson: “Quantum origin of the oxygen storage capability of ceria” Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 166601 (2002).

3. L. Vitos, P.A. Korzhavyi, B. Johansson: “Elastic property maps of austenitic stainless steels.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 155501 (2002)

4. P. Sharma, A. Gupta, K.V. Rao, F.J. Owens, R. Sharma, R. Ahuja, J.M.O. Guillen, B. Johansson and G.A. Gehring: “Ferromagnetism above room temperature in bulk and transparent thin films of Mn-doped ZnO”.

Nature Materials 2, 673 (2003)

5. A.B. Belonoshko, R. Ahuja, and B. Johansson, “Stability of the body-centred-cubic phase of iron in the Earth’s inner core”. Nature 424, 1032 (2003)

6. Levente Vitos, Pacel A. Korzhavyi, and B. Johansson, “Stainless steel optimization from quantum mechanical calculations”, Nature Materials 2, 25 (2003)

7. L.V. Pourovskii, A.V. Ruban, B. Johansson, and I.A. Abrikosov, “Antisite-defect-induced surface segregation in ordered NiPt alloy”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 026105 (2003).

8. N. Dubrovinskaia, L. Dubrovinsky, I. Kantor, W.A. Crichton, V. Dmitriev, V. Prakapenka, G. Shen, L. Vitos, R. Ahuja, B. Johansson, and I.A. Abrikosov: “Beating the miscibility barrier between iron group elements and magnesium by high-pressure alloying”  Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 245502 (2005).

9. S. Heathman, R.G. Haire, T. Le Bihan, A. Lindbaum, M. Idiri, P. Normile, S. Li, R. Ahuja, B. Johansson and G.H. Lander: “A High-Pressure Structure in Curium Linked to Magnetism” Science 309, 110 (2005).

10. D.A. Andersson, S.I. Simak, N.V. Skorodumova, I.A. Abrikosov, and B. Johansson: “Optimization of ionic conductivity in doped ceria” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 103, 3518 (2006).

11. L. Vitos, P.A. Korzhavyi, and B. Johansson: “Evidence of large magnetostructural effects in austenitic stainless steels” Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 117210 (2006).

12. L. Duprovinsky, N. Duprovinskaia, W.A. Crichton, A.S. Mikhaylushkin, S.I. Simak, I.A. Abrikosov, J.S. de Almeida, R. Ahuja, W. Luo, and B. Johansson: “The Noblest of All Metals is Structurally Unstable at High Pressure” Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 045503 (2007).

13. L. Duprovinsky, N. Duprovinskaia, O. Nagyrina, I. Kantor, A. Kuznetzov, V.B. Prakapenka, L. Vitos, B. Johansson, A.S. Mikhaylushkin, S.I. Simak, and I.A. Abrikosov: “Body-Centered Cubic Iron-Nickel Alloy in Earth’s Core” Science 316, 1880 (2007).

14. M. Krisch, D. Farber, R. Xu, D. Antonangeli, C. Aracne, A. Beraud, T.-C. Chiang, D.Y. Kim, E. Isaev, R. Ahuja, and B. Johansson: “Phonons of the anomalous element cerium” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 108 (23), 9342 (2011).

15. I. Loa, E.I. Isaev, M.I. McMahon, D.Y. Kim, B. Johansson, A. Bosak, M. Krisch, “Lattice dynamics and Superconductivity in Cerium at High Pressure” Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 045502 (2012).

16. Korzhavyi, P.; Soroka, I.; Isaev, E.; Lilja, C.; Johansson, B. “Exploring monovalent copper compounds with oxygen and hydrogen” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA (PNAS) 109: 686-689 (2012).

17. Minho Jo, Yang Mo Koo, Byeong-Joo Lee, Börje Johansson, Levente Vitos, Se Kyun Kwon, “Theory for plasticity of face-centered cubic metals.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA (PNAS) 111 (18): 6561 (2014)

.