1. Serge Haroche was born on 11 September 1944 and is a French physicist who was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with David J Wineland for "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems", a study of the particle of light, the photon.
Since 2001, Haroche is a professor at the College de France and holds the chair of quantum physics and in 2022 he had the Fermi Chair of Physics at University of Rome La Sapienza.
Serge Haroche's father, a lawyer trained in Rabat, was one of seven children born to a family of teachers, Isaac and Esther Haroche, who worked at the Ecole de l'Alliance israelite.
Serge Haroche's family left Morocco in 1956 at the end of the French protectorate treaty, and settled in France.
Serge Haroche was head of the Physics department at the Ecole normale superieure from 1994 to 2000.
Since 2001, Serge Haroche has been a professor at the College de France and holds the chair of quantum physics.
Serge Haroche is a member of the Societe Francaise de Physique, the European Physical society and a fellow and member of the American Physical Society.
In September 2012, Serge Haroche was elected by his peers to the position of administrator of the College de France.
On 9 October 2012 Serge Haroche was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, together with the American physicist David Wineland, for their work regarding measurement and manipulation of individual quantum systems.
In 2020, Serge Haroche was appointed by European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel to serve on an independent search committee for the next president of the European Research Council, chaired by Helga Nowotny.
Serge Haroche is principally known for showing quantum decoherence by experimental observation, while working with colleagues at the Ecole normale superieure in Paris in 1996.
Serge Haroche then moved on to Rydberg atoms, giant atomic states particularly sensitive to microwaves, which makes them well adapted for studying the interactions between light and matter.
Serge Haroche showed that such atoms, coupled to a superconducting cavity containing a few photons, are well-suited to the testing of quantum decoherence and to the realization of quantum logic operations necessary for the treatment of quantum information.