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Alain Aspect is a French physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly tests of Bell's inequalities with entangled photons, the wave-particle duality of single photons, laser cooling of atoms below the one-photon recoil energy, quantum gases, and quantum simulators. Aspect is Augustin Fresnel professor at the Institut d’Optique Graduate School, a professor at Ecole Polytechnique, a senior fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies, and adjunct professor at City University, Hong Kong, and a distinguished scientist emeritus at CNRS, France. In 2022, Aspect was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his experiments on entangled quantum states. Although working independently, the prize was split between Aspect and two other scientists working on quantum entanglement, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger.
Born in Agen, France, on June 15th, 1947, Aspect received his undergraduate degree from Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) Cachan and Université d'Orsay, France. He remained at the Université d'Orsay for his master's and Ph.D. He has held positions at Institut d'Optique, ENS Yaoundé (Cameroon), ENS Cachan, ENS / Collège de France, and CNRS. Aspect holds seven honorary doctorate degrees from institutions around the world, including Canada, Australia, Ireland, Israel, the UK, and Hong Kong. Aspect is a founder of the French quantum computing company Pasqal.
Aspect has received numerous awards and recognitions:
- Max Born award (1999)
- Herbert Walther award (2011)
- Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn prize from Optica (2013)
- CNRS gold medal (2005)
- Wolf Prize in physics (2010)
- Niels Bohr gold medal and the Unesco-Niels Bohr gold medal (2013)
- Balzan prize in quantum information (2013)
- Named Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, the highest French order of merit (2014)
- Nobel prize in physics (2022)
On October 4th, 2022, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2022 Nobel prize in physics was awarded to John Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger for:
experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science
The three scientists had independently:
conducted groundbreaking experiments using entangled quantum states, where two particles behave like a single unit even when they are separated. Their results have cleared the way for new technology based upon quantum information.
