2018 Nobel Prize in Physics

Prof. Gérard Mourou is A.D. Moore Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan and was a founding Director of the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. Currently he is a co-Director of the new center IZEST (International Center for Zettt-Exawatt Science and Technology) at the Ecole Polytechnique. Professor Mourou is recognized worldwide for his work in ultrafast science and technology.

Mourou has made major contributions covering the field of electronics, optoelectronics, archeology and medicine. In ophthalmology, his work on the cornea resulted in IntraLASIK technology, marketed by IntraLase used on more than 5 million patients. He is a co-inventor of the Chirped Pulses Amplification (CPA) technique which has allowed for amplification of an ultrashort laser pulses to very high optical powers (presently several Petawatts) with the laser pulse being stretched out temporally prior to amplification.

He has received the Wood Prize from the Optical Society of America, the Edgerton Prize from the SPIE, the Sarnoff Prize from the IEEE,  the 2004 IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award, the 2005 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics and the Charles Hard Townes Award by the OSA (2009)б the Frederic Ives Medal / Jarus W. Quinn Prize by the OSA (2016), and the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science by the American Physical Society (2018). He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Professor Mourou is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is also a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Austrian and Lombardy. He was awarded a National Legion of Honor of France.