Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2012 for quantum optics
Today the Nobel Prize in Physics 2012 has been awarded to Serge Haroche and David Wineland for their fundamental research into the interaction between light and material. The prize will be presented on 10 December 2011 in Stockholm.
The French Serge Haroche and the American David Wineland receive the Nobel Prize for their 'groundbreaking research in the area of measuring and manipulating individual quantum systems'. They have demonstrated amazing predictions from quantum mechanics by making use of the interaction between light and matter. Wineland investigated quantum characteristics of single atoms. He successfully measured and manipulated these with the help of light. Haroche, however, viewed the light particles as quantum systems and used the atoms to control and read out the light. Both were able to control the quantum characteristics of the particles and to read these out without destroying the particles. The techniques they used in this fundamental research are far more widely applicable. Very accurate atomic clocks and a superfast quantum computer of the future will both benefit from their work.
AMOLF project leader Ewold Verhagen: "Haroche and Wineland have developed amazing techniques to capture single quantum systems (photons and atoms) and they have realised fantastic thought experiments that the founders of quantum mechanics held to be bizarre or impossible."
FOM focus group leader professor Leo Kouwenhoven responded enthusiastically to the news as well: "The interaction between light and matter at the fundamental level of a single light particle and a single atom is a fantastic milestone in physics. A well-deserved prize with two fantastic prize winners. This research has been a major stimulus for ideas about the quantum computer."
Haroche cites an interesting quote from Schrödinger (1952): "We never experiment with just one electron or atom (...). In thought-experiments we sometimes assume we do; this invariably entails ridiculous consequences...".
Further information
For further information about the Nobel Prize in Physics 2012 please see the website of the Nobel Prize.