Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (Template:IPA; born 1 April 1933) is a French physicist and researcher at the École normale supérieure in Paris.<ref name=":0" /> He is known for his experiments in laser cooling. He was the first to show that it is possible to cool far beyond the limit expected by sub-Doppler cooling, below the recoil temperature.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips for research in methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms.

Early life

Cohen-Tannoudji was born in Constantine, French Algeria, to Algerian Sephardic Jewish parents Abraham Cohen-Tannoudji and Sarah Sebbah.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> When describing his origins Cohen-Tannoudji said: "My family, originally from Tangier, settled in Tunisia and then in Algeria in the 16th century after having fled Spain during the Inquisition. In fact, our name, Cohen-Tannoudji, means simply the Cohen family from Tangiers. The Algerian Jews obtained the French citizenship in 1870 after Algeria became a French colony in 1830."<ref name= bio>Template:Cite web</ref>

After finishing secondary school in Algiers in 1953, Cohen-Tannoudji left for Paris to attend the École Normale Supérieure.<ref name=bio/> His professors included Henri Cartan, Laurent Schwartz, and Alfred Kastler.<ref name=bio/>

In 1958 he married Jacqueline Veyrat, a high school teacher, with whom he has three children. His studies were interrupted when he was conscripted into the army, in which he served for 28 months (longer than usual because of the Algerian War). In 1960 he resumed working toward his doctorate, which he obtained from the École Normale Supérieure under the supervision of Alfred Kastler and Jean Brossel at the end of 1962.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

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Claude Cohen-Tannoudji in 2010

After his dissertation, he started teaching quantum mechanics at the University of Paris. From 1964-67, he was an associate professor at the university and from 1967-1973 he was a full professor.<ref name=":0" /> His lecture notes were the basis of the popular textbook, Quantum Mechanics (Template:Langx), which he wrote with his colleagues Template:Ill and Franck Laloë. He also continued his research work on atom-photon interactions, and his research team developed the model of the dressed atom.

In 1973, he became a professor at the Collège de France.<ref name=":0" /> In the early 1980s, he started to lecture on radiative forces on atoms in laser light fields. He also formed a laboratory there with Alain Aspect, Christophe Salomon, and Jean Dalibard to study laser cooling and trapping. He even took a statistical approach to laser cooling with the use of stable distributions.<ref>Bardou, F., Bouchaud, J. P., Aspect, A., & Cohen-Tannoudji, C. (2001). Non-ergodic cooling: subrecoil laser cooling and Lévy statistics.</ref>

In 1976, he took sabbatical leave from the Collège de France, and lectured at Harvard University and MIT.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At Harvard, he was a Loeb Lecturer for two weeks,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and at MIT, he was a visiting professor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

His work eventually led to the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997 "for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light", shared with Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Cohen-Tannoudji was the first physics Nobel prize winner born in an Arab country.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2015, Cohen-Tannoudji signed the Mainau Declaration 2015 on Climate Change on the final day of the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The declaration was signed by a total of 76 Nobel Laureates and handed to then-President of the French Republic, François Hollande, as part of the successful COP21 climate summit in Paris.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards

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Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, UNESCO, 2011

• 1979 – Young Medal and Prize, for distinguished research in the field of optics.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 1991 – Research Award of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
• 1993 – Charles Hard Townes Award<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 1994 – honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University, Sweden<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 1996 – Quantum Electronics Prize of the European Physical Society
• 1996 – CNRS Gold medal
• 1997 – Nobel Prize, for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.
• 2002 – Honorary Member of the Optical Society<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2010 – Legion of Honour

Selected works

The main works of Cohen-Tannoudji are given in his homepage.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu, and Frank Laloë. 1973. Mécanique quantique. 2 vols. Collection Enseignement des Sciences. Paris. Template:ISBN (Quantum Mechanics. Vol. I & II, 1991. Wiley, New-York, Template:ISBN & Template:ISBN).
• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Gilbert Grynberg and Jacques Dupont-Roc. Introduction à l'électrodynamique quantique. (Photons and Atoms: Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics. 1997. Wiley. Template:ISBN)
• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Gilbert Grynberg and Jacques Dupont-Roc, Processus d'interaction photons-atomes. (Atoms-Photon Interactions: Basic Processes and Applications. 1992. Wiley, New-York. Template:ISBN)
• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji. 2004. Atoms in Electromagnetic fields. 2nd Edition. World Scientific. Collection of his most important papers.

See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

External links

• His research group
• His lecture notes (in French)
• Template:Nobelprize including his Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1997 Manipulating Atoms with Photons