Nobel Prize "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems".
Born in Casablanca, he moved to France at 12 and, after his formation, he got in touch with the two more representative research poles of french science: the Collège de France and the École Normale Supérieure. There he met his PhD supervisor, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Nobel Prize in Physics 1997 and visitor of the Program ConCiencia in 2015.
When we dive into the smallest components of our universe, our usual understanding of how the world works ceases to apply, and new surprising rules show up. It is the realm of quantum physics. One of such rules is that the mere observation of an individual quantum system alters it. Starting in the 1980s, Serge Haroche thought of directly observing individual quantum particles without destroying them. He managed to did so by designing ingenious experiments with lasers to study quantum phenomena when lights and matter interact. In this way he was able to capture photons using a trap - two mirrors which they can bounce between. This device allowed Serge Haroche to study the photons by passing atoms through the trap.
Thanks to this breakthrough in quantum optics, he could not only observe these fragile quantum states, but also control them. This has enabled this field of research to take the very first steps towards building a new type of super fast computer based on quantum physics.
