Gérard Mourou
Facts
© Nobel Media AB. Photo: A. Mahmoud
Gérard Mourou
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018
Born: 22 June 1944, Albertville, France
Affiliation at the time of the award: École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Prize motivation: “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses”
Prize share: 1/4
Life
Gérard Mourou was born in Albertville, France. He studied physics at the University of Grenoble and then at the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie in Paris, where he earned his PhD in 1973. He later moved to the United States and became a professor at the University of Rochester, where he did his Nobel Prize awarded work along with Donna Strickland. He subsequently worked at the University of Michigan and the École Polytechnique in Paris.
Work
The sharp beams of laser light have given us new opportunities for deepening our knowledge about the world and shaping it. In 1985, Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou succeeded in creating ultrashort high-intensity laser pulses without destroying the amplifying material. First they stretched the laser pulses in time to reduce their peak power, then amplified them, and finally compressed them. The intensity of the pulse then increases dramatically. Chirped pulse amplification has many uses, including corrective eye surgeries.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
