Named after Gregori Aminoff, the pioneering Swedish crystallographer, the prize is given annually to recognize scientists of international distinction who have made a major contribution to crystallography. It consists of a gold medal and a $10,000 cash award.

Previous recipients include David Harker, who directed the crystallography program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and Michael Rossman of Purdue University, who, with collaborators, solved the atomic structure of the common cold virus.

Coppens will receive the prize from H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in March 1996.

A UB faculty member since 1968, Coppens has pioneered studies of the use of X-ray-diffraction techniques to study the nature of bonding between atoms in molecules and crystals by studying the distribution of electrons in a crystal.

Coppens has used complex mathematical techniques to develop an X-ray method of "seeing" the electron clouds that surround atoms and hold them together to form molecules. His methods are considered to be classic standards for such analysis and are being applied in laboratories across the world.

Coppens is principal investigator for the State University of New York beamline at the National Synchotron Light Source located at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. The SUNY beamline, the result of a close collaboration between researchers at UB, the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the College of Ceramics at Alfred, has, in recent years, been an essential tool in the research on which the award is based.

In 1989, Coppens' research team was the first to determine the nature of small atomic distortions in certain types of high-temperature superconducting crystals that affect the temperature at which they superconduct.

Coppens and his then-postdoctoral research associates, Mark R. Pressprich and Mark A. White, also completed the first X-ray-diffraction study ever done of a molecule in an electronically excited state.

Coppens is president of the International Union of Crystallography, which brings together 40 national crystallographic organizations, encompassing about 10,000 crystallographers worldwide. His term as president, which began in 1993, runs through August.

He has received the highest French national university honor for foreign scholars, Doctor Honoris Causa, from the University of Nancy.

The author of more than 200 technical papers and articles, he has served as president and vice president of the American Crystallographic Association, and was the recipient of the association's Buerger Award. He served several terms as a member of the U.S. National Committee for Crystallography of the National Academy of Sciences.