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He was awarded the Hughes medal by the Royal Society (of which he was a Fellow) in 1920 for his work in thermionics, which is the basis for the vacuum tube.
He received the Nobel prize in 1928 "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him".
He also researched photoelectric effects, the gyromagnetic effect , the emission of electrons by chemical reactions, soft X-rays, and the spectrum of hydrogen.
His nephew was physicist Richard Davisson.