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Prof. Alain Aspect

2022 Nobel Prize in Physics
Institut d'Optique Graduate School - Université Paris-Saclay - France

Prof. Alain Aspect is a pioneering experimental physicist known for elucidating aspects of the quantum world with profound philosophical consequences. A native of Agen, France, Alain studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan and at the Université Paris-11 in Orsay. He spent three years in Cameroon, where teaching left him time for independent study of quantum mechanics. Alain returned to Orsay for his doctoral work, “Three experimental tests of Bell’s inequalities with entangled photons,” defended in 1983 at the Institut d’Optique, for which he was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1985, Alain started a new group at the Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel to cool and trap atoms. In 1992, he returned to the Institut d’Optique to launch the new Atom Optics group. Since 2012, Alain has been emeritus from CNRS and has held the chair Augustin Fresnel at Institut d’Optique. He is also a Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique and at the ENS Paris-Saclay.