Newport Beach, UC Irvine

Chemist Group Awards UC Irvine Professor

Briefly in education

May 4, 2002

A UC Irvine engineering and chemistry professor has won a prestigious award for Southland chemists.

Peter M. Rentzepis received the Tolman Medal for outstanding contributions to chemistry. His ultra-fast laser techniques for research revolutionized many areas of science. He has also developed methods for three-dimensional optical storage, including a "memory cube" that has the potential to store as much as a trillion bits of information in a volume slightly smaller than a sugar cube. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Rentzepis has received more than 25 major awards and prizes, written four books and more than 400 research publications. He holds 62 patents on his discoveries. The Tolman Medal is named in honor of Richard Tolman, a pioneering Caltech chemist who made key discoveries on electrons.