Haroche, Serge (1944-…), a French physicist, won the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics. He shared the prize with the American physicist David Wineland. They won for their work in isolating and studying quantum particles. Such particles include atoms and subatomic particles, particles smaller than atoms. The two scientists worked independently. Haroche trapped photons (particles of light). Wineland trapped ions (charged atoms).
Quantum physics is the study of how quantum particles behave. The English scientist Sir Isaac Newton in the late 1600’s became the first person to describe the physics that governs the objects we see around us. However, tiny quantum particles do not always behave in the way Newton determined for larger objects. For example, certain quantum particles can be in two places at the same time. Most physicists once thought it impossible to study these particles without disturbing their behavior. Many physicists also believed that the particles could not be studied without destroying them.
Haroche began his work in the 1980’s. His experiments trap photons between two extremely cold mirrors. The photons are trapped for about one tenth of a second. During this time the photons travel about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers), roughly equal to one trip around Earth. While the photons bounce back and forth between the mirrors, atoms of the metal rubidium are added one at a time. The interaction between the light energy and the atoms can be observed and studied without disturbing the behavior of the photons or destroying them.
Both Wineland’s work and Haroche’s work have contributed greatly to the development of quantum computing, the attempt to make a computer that uses quantum particles to perform calculations. Traditional computers use electronic switches called transistors and diodes to do this work. Scientists think replacing these devices with particles may greatly increase the speed of a computer.
Serge Haroche was born on Sept. 11, 1944, in Casablanca, Morocco. He attended college at the École Normale Supérieure, in Paris, from 1963 to 1967. He received a junior doctorate degree and teaching certificate in physics in 1967. He went on to get a Ph.D. degree in physics in 1971. He held various scientific positions at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris until 1975. During this time he also worked at a school called the École Polytechnique in Paris and was a visiting scholar at Stanford University near Palo Alto, California. He became a professor at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris in 1975. He went on to teach at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; and the École Normale Supérieure. He became chair of Quantum Physics at the College of France in 2001.
See also Wineland, David Jeffrey .
