Alain Aspect · Lablypedia

Aspect was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science".

In 2025 he was elected to the Académie Française.

Education

Aspect is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (ENS Cachan, today part of Paris-Saclay University). He passed the agrégation in physics in 1969 and received his PhD degree in 1971 from the École supérieure d'optique (later known as Institut d'Optique Graduate School) of Université d'Orsay (later known as Université Paris-Sud). He then taught for three years in Cameroon as a replacement for then compulsory military service.

In the early 1980s, while working on his doctorat d'État (habilitation thesis), he performed the Bell test experiments that showed that Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen's putative reductio ad absurdum of quantum mechanics, namely that it implied 'ghostly action at a distance', did in fact appear to be realized when two particles were separated by an arbitrarily large distance (see EPR paradox and Aspect's experiment). A correlation between the particles' wave functions remains, as long as they were once part of the same undisturbed wave function before one of the child particles was measured. He defended his doctorat d'État in 1983 at Université Paris-Sud (today part of Paris-Saclay University).

Aspect received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2008.

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Research

Aspect's experiments, following the first experiment of Stuart Freedman and John Clauser in 1972, were considered to provide further support to the thesis that Bell's inequalities are violated in its CHSH version, in particular by closing a form of the locality loophole. However, his results were not completely conclusive since there were loopholes that allowed for alternative explanations that comply with local realism.

After his work on Bell's inequalities, Aspect turned toward studies of laser cooling of neutral atoms, and Bose–Einstein condensates at the Kastler-Brossel Laboratory.

Aspect was deputy director of the French "grande école" École supérieure d'optique until 1994. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and French Academy of Technologies, and a professor at the École polytechnique.

Distinctions

Aspect was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2015. His certificate of election reads:

For his fundamental experiments in quantum optics and atomic physics. Alain Aspect was the first to exclude subluminal communication between the measurement stations in experimental demonstrations that quantum mechanics invalidates separable hidden-variable theories and the first to demonstrate experimentally the wave–particle duality of single photons. He co-invented the technique of velocity-selective coherent population trapping, was the first to compare the Hanbury Brown-Twiss correlations of fermions and bosons under the same conditions, and the first to demonstrate Anderson localization in an ultra-cold atom system. His experiments illuminate fundamental aspects of the quantum-mechanical behaviour of single photons, photon pairs and atoms.

In 2005 he was awarded the gold medal of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, where he is Research Director. The 2010 Wolf Prize in physics was awarded to Aspect, Anton Zeilinger and John Clauser. In 2013 Aspect was awarded both the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal and the UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal. In 2011, he was assigned the Medal of the City of Paris. In 2013, he was also awarded the Balzan Prize for Quantum Information Processing and Communication. In 2014, he was named Officer of the Legion of Honour.

Asteroid 33163 Alainaspect, discovered by astronomers at Caussols in 1998, was named after him. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 8 November 2019 (M.P.C. 118220).

Aspect was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell's inequalities and pioneering quantum information science".

On 26 June 2025, he was elected to the Académie Française.

Honours and awards

Accolades received by Aspect include the following:

Honours

2025: Elected to the Académie Française.
2022: Commander of the Legion of Honour.
2014: Officier of the Legion of Honour.
2011: Commander of the Palmes académiques.
2011: Medal of the City of Paris.
2010: Officier of the National Order of Merit.
2005: Knight of the Legion of Honour.

Awards

2022: Nobel Prize in Physics (with John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger)
2022: Honorary Optica Member
2013: Balzan Prize
2013: Niels Bohr International Gold Medal
2013: UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal
2013: Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Prize
2012: Albert Einstein Medal
2012: Herbert Walther Award
2010: Wolf Prize
2005: CNRS Gold Medal
1999: Gay-Lussac–Humboldt Prize
1999: Max Born Award
1991: Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize
1987: International Commission for Optics Award
1985: Commonwealth Award for Science and Invention
1983: Prix Servant

Acknowledgement

Member of the Academia Europaea
Member of the French Academy of Sciences
Member of the French Academy of Technologies
Foreign Member of the Royal Society
Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences
Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
Corresponding member abroad of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Fellow and Honorary Member of Optica
Member of scientific advisory committee for EssilorLuxottica

Honorary degrees

2006: Université de Montréal
2008: Australian National University
2008: Heriot-Watt University
2010: University of Glasgow
2011: University of Haifa
2014: University of Waterloo
2018: City University of Hong Kong
2023: Université de Sherbrooke
2024: University of Minho
2025: National Taiwan University