Allan MacDonald Honored with Kavli Prize in Nanoscience

When Allan H. MacDonald began exploring two-dimensional materials decades ago, the field was still taking shape. Today, that work has helped define an entirely new area of nanoscience — and earned him one of science’s major international honors.

MacDonald, a theoretical physicist at The University of Texas at Austin and a faculty investigator in UT Austin’s Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials, an NSF MRSEC, has been named a recipient of the 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. He shares the prize with Pablo Jarillo-Herrero of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Eva Y. Andrei of Rutgers University for foundational work that established the field of twistronics.

It is the first time since the Kavli Prize was first awarded in 2008 by The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters that a Texas-based researcher has received the honor in nanoscience.

Twistronics is built on a deceptively simple idea: stacking two or more atomically thin layers of a material, such as graphene, and rotating them at a particular angle. That twist can reveal extraordinary new properties without changing the material’s composition.

The approach has opened new possibilities in nanoscience and could eventually influence technologies ranging from more sustainable and efficient electricity transmission to new electronic devices and quantum computing.

“Allan MacDonald’s curiosity and ambition have unlocked extraordinary possibilities,” said UT President Jim Davis in a recent article about the award. “His discovery is opening new frontiers in energy, electronics and quantum technology. We are proud to call him a Longhorn and excited to celebrate this latest achievement.” 

MacDonald, a native of Nova Scotia, Canada, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and holds UT’s Sid W. Richardson Chair in Physics. He previously received the Wolf Prize in physics and the Frontiers of Knowledge Award, both shared with Jarillo-Herrero, whose experimental work brought MacDonald’s ideas into the laboratory.

Since joining the UT Austin faculty in 2000, MacDonald has continued to build on an interest in two-dimensional materials that began in the 1980s. He has authored 1,000 physics publications, received more than 110,000 citations and been granted three patents.

The roots of the work recognized by the Kavli Prize trace back to the early years of graphene research. In 2004, scientists discovered a simple way to produce atomically thin sheets of graphene, a material made from a single layer of carbon atoms. The discovery launched broad interest in the properties and potential applications of two-dimensional materials.

Andrei helped pioneer research showing that geometric control — layering and twisting two-dimensional materials — could alter their properties. Her experimental advances were later placed into a broader theoretical framework by MacDonald.

MacDonald asked what would happen if two atom-thin sheets of graphene were stacked together with a precise twist, so that the atoms in one sheet did not line up perfectly with the atoms in the other. Using high-powered computers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, MacDonald and his team, including then-postdoctoral scientist Rafi Bistritzer, predicted that unusual electrical properties would emerge when two graphene sheets were rotated at an angle of 1.1 degrees.

That angle later became known as the “magic angle.”

Jarillo-Herrero later confirmed experimentally that the magic angle could unlock superconductivity, allowing electricity to move without loss. In 2018, he and his colleagues published two papers on twistronics in the same issue of Nature.

MacDonald’s work in the field continues. His latest paper, “Two-component exciton condensates in an electron–hole bilayer,” was also published today in Nature.

The 2026 Kavli Prizes in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience were announced today, honoring 10 scientists from three fields and nine nationalities. Laureates in each field will share $1 million and will receive the prize in Oslo, Norway, in September.

Read more: Allan MacDonald Wins Kavli Prize in Nanoscience