From 1959, Bernard Cohen and his collaborators developed innovative techniques [Ref.1] for obtaining high energy resolution in nuclear reaction studies while simultaneously achieving high data collection rates: energy loss matching between incident and emerging particles allowed use of relatively thick targets, and dispersion matching between magnetic analysis of the incident and emerging particles allowed use of wide open defining slits on each. This high energy resolution, 10 times better than was then available elsewhere at cyclotron energies, was applied to studies of (d,p) stripping reactions and (d,t) pick-up reactions in about 100 nuclei throughout the Periodic Table, eventually determining the location of all low-lying neutron single particle states [Ref. 2] and the degree to which they are filled [Ref. 3] in nuclei of all masses. The section "Single Neutron States" describes this program in some detail. Other work by the group in the period 1958?-1980? is described more briefly in the remaining sections listed below.
The 1981 Tom W. Bonner Prize was awarded to Bernard L. Cohen "For pointing the way to some basic issues in nuclear structure and reactions: to our understanding of low-lying collective states, the occupation of single-particle levels, and the mechanisms of direct reactions."
