Serge Haroche born in 11 of September 1944, 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 Collège de France and holds the Chair of Quantum Physics. In 1971 he defended his doctoral thesis in physics at the University of Paris VI, his research has been conducted under the direction of Claude Cohen-Tannoudji.
Serge Haroche was born in Casablanca, Morocco, to Albert Haroche (1920–1998) and Valentine Haroche, née Roubleva (1921–1998) a teacher who was born in Odessa to Jewish family that relocated to Paris in the early 1920s. He left Morocco and settled in France in 1956, and he currently lives in Paris; he is married to the sociologist Claudine Haroche (née Zeligson), also descending from the Russian Jewishémigrés family, with two children (aged 40 and 43).
Haroche worked in the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) as a research scientist from 1967 to 1975, and spent a year (1972–1973) as a visiting postdoc in Stanford University, in Arthur Leonard Schawlow's team. In 1975 he moved to a professor position at Paris VI University. Since 2001, Haroche has been a Professor at the Collège de France and holds the Chair of Quantum Physics. He is a member of the Société Française 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 Collège de France. On 9 October 2012 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.
They give them some important awards like:
- Commander of the French Legion of Honour
- 1988 Einstein Prize for Laser Science (awarded at Lasers '88).
- 1992 The Humboldt Prize
- 1993 Albert A. Michelson Medal by the Franklin Institute
- 2007 Charles Hard Townes Award by the OSA
- 2009 CNRS Gold medal
- 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with David J. Wineland)
