Alain Aspect, Nobel Prize in Physics 2022

Alain Aspect is an esteemed affiliated professor at ENS Paris-Saclay and a member of the Scientific Council.

ENS Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Institut d'Optique Graduate School, and École Polytechnique rejoice in this well-deserved distinction, rewarding years of pioneering research in the key field of physics that is quantum technologies.

HIS BACKGROUND 

Once a student of the school (class of 1965), Alain Aspect was an assistant professor at ENS Paris-Saclay (then ENSET) when he conducted experimental tests of Bell's inequalities related to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, within his quantum optics laboratory at the Institut d’Optique.

HIS WORK 

His work, now honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics, laid the foundation for the second quantum revolution and has inspired a broad community dedicated to the development of quantum technologies. He is recognized for shedding light on the fundamental aspects of the quantum behavior of single photons, photon pairs, and atoms, and for contributing to the understanding of the quantum world.

• 1983: Experimental tests of Bell's inequalities (Ph.D. thesis): they demonstrated the astonishing properties of quantum entanglement; 
• 1986: Experimental demonstration of wave-particle duality for a single photon, made possible by the invention and realization of the first source of single photons; work extended by Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment (2008, Vincent Jacques, Jean-François Roch); 
• 1987: Laser cooling of atoms via single-photon recoil with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji; 
• 2000: Bose-Einstein condensation of metastable helium with Antoine Browaeys and Chris Westbrook and its use in Quantum Atomic Optics (observation of the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect for bosonic and fermionic atoms, the Hong Ou and Mandel effect, entangled atom pairs in impulsion); 
• 2007: Anderson localization of ultracold atoms in a disordered optical potential, with Philippe Bouyer, Laurent Sanchez-Palencia, and Vincent Josse. 

These works have contributed to the emergence of quantum technologies, particularly quantum cryptography and quantum simulators and computers.

AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

• 2022: Nobel Prize in Physics with John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger for their work on quantum mechanics 
• 2021: Honorary Member of Optica 
• 2013: Balzan Prize
• 2013: Niels Bohr Medal on the occasion of the centenary celebration of Niels Bohr's atomic model publication
• 2012: Albert Einstein Medal
• 2010: Wolf Prize in Physics, jointly with American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger, for his conceptual and experimental contributions to quantum physics
• 2005: CNRS Gold Medal
• 1991: Winner of the Holweck Prize