Claude Cohen-Tannoudji - Biography

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (born April 1, 1933) is a French physicist and Nobel Laureate. 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. He is still an active researcher, working at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Early life

Cohen-Tannoudji was born in Constantine to Jewish parents when Algeria was a French territory. After graduating from the University of Constantine (Algeria), Cohen-Tannoudji left Algeria for Paris to attend the École normale supérieure. His professors included Henri Cartan, Laurent Schwartz, and Alfred Kastler.

In 1958 he married Jacqueline, a high school teacher, with whom he had 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 at the end of 1962.

Career

After his dissertation, he started teaching quantum mechanics at the University of Paris. His lecture notes were the basis of the popular textbook, Mécanique quantique, which he wrote with two of his colleagues. 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. 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.

His work there 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. Cohen-Tannoudji was the first physics Nobel prize winner born in an Arab country.

Awards

1979 - Young Medal and Prize, for distinguished research in the field of optics.

1997 - Nobel Prize, for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

Bibliography

• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu, and Frank Laloë. 1973. Mécanique quantique. 2 cols. Collection Enseignement des Sciences. Paris. ISBN 2-7056-5733-9 (ISBN 0-471-16433-X for the English translation).
• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Gilbert Grynberg and Jacques Dupont-Roc. Introduction à l'électrodynamique quantique.
• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Gilbert Grynberg and Jacques Dupont-Roc, Processus d'interaction photons-atomes. (In French and English)
• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji. Atoms in light fields 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)
• Autobiography for the Nobel Prize ceremony (on which this article is based)