Description:

Abstract: The first quantum revolution is based on wave-particle duality for individual particles. Contrary to a widely spread belief, the direct observation of wave-particle duality for light took place only in 1986, after the development of the first single photon source. Modern single photon sources play an important role in the development of quantum technologies.

Speaker:

Alain Aspect

Alain Aspect is an alumnus of ENSET Cachan (now ENS Paris-Saclay) and Orsay University. He is currently Professor at the Institut d'Optique-Université Paris-Saclay and Professor at the École Polytechnique. His doctoral thesis (1983), at the Institut d'Optique, focused on experimental tests of the foundations of quantum mechanics (tests of Bell's inequalities, for which he was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics along with John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger). After experiments on single photons, with Philippe Grangier (1984-86), he worked on laser cooling of atoms at the Kastler Brossel laboratory of ENS Paris, with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Jean Dalibard and Christophe Salomon. The group he founded at the Institut d'Optique in 1993 focuses on atomic quantum optics and atomic quantum simulators with degenerate gases.
Alain Aspect is a member of the Académie des Sciences, the Académie des Technologies and several foreign academies (Austria, Belgium, Italy, UK, USA).

This is lecture 2 of 3 in the 2025 Heilborn Lecture Series. Please visit our website for more information.

Keywords: Physics, Heilborn