Michel Devoret is a French

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and F. W. Beinecke Professor of Applied Physics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. He also holds a position as the Director of the Applied Physics Nanofabrication Lab at Yale. He is known for his pioneering work on macroscopic

quantum tunneling In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantizati ...

, and the single-electron pump as well as in groundbreaking contributions to initiating the fields of circuit quantum electrodynamics and quantronics.

Biography

Devoret was born in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. He graduated from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications in Paris (1975) and went on to earn his PhD in physics from the University of Orsay (

University of Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (French: ''Université Paris-Sud''), also known as University of Paris — XI (or as Université d'Orsay before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, in ...

) in 1982, while working in the molecular quantum physics group at Paris. After his doctoral work, he proceeded to post-doctoral training for two years, working on macroscopic

in John Clarke's laboratory at the

University of California Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

. Devoret's research has been focused on experimental solid state physics and condensed matter physics, with specific emphasis on circuit quantum electrodynamics and a field he and his colleagues initiated, known as "quantronics," the study of certain

mesoscopic Mesoscopic physics is a subdiscipline of condensed matter physics that deals with materials of an intermediate size. These materials range in size between the nanoscale for a quantity of atoms (such as a molecule) and of materials measuring micr ...

electronic effects in which collective degrees of freedom, such as electric currents and voltages behave quantum mechanically. In addition, his group has been carrying out investigations on single Cooper pair devices for fields such as quantum computation and metrology, and studying amplification, information, and noise in

systems. His work in association with well-known experimentalists in the field such as Rob Schoelkopf as well as theorists, such as Steven Girvin has brought about valuable insights in quantum computing and in developing a new paradigm of circuit QED using superconducting electrical circuits, which are now viewed as one of the main platforms for the implementation of quantum information processors. Also, after having developed new types of amplifiers reaching the quantum limit, he employed them to determine the fundamental back-action of measurements. In particular, Michel’s team showed that it was possible to stop a quantum jump in its flight and reverse it. He currently investigates the new phenomena of quantum error correction and fault-tolerant quantum operation. In addition, his work on quantum information, in association with A. Marblestone, has shown an exponential quantum enhancement in certain communication channels as a result of entanglement (see

Quantum pseudo-telepathy Quantum pseudo-telepathy is the fact that in certain Bayesian games with asymmetric information, players who have access to a shared physical system in an entangled quantum state, and who are able to execute strategies that are contingent upon m ...

). In addition to a number of awards, he has been awarded the John Bell Prize (shared with Rob Schoelkopf) in 2013 for "Fundamental and pioneering experimental advances in entangling superconducting qubits and microwave photons, and their application to quantum information processing."

Honors

* Olli V. Lounasmaa Memorial Prize, 2016 *

Fritz London Memorial Prize The Fritz London Memorial Prize was created to recognize scientists who made outstanding contributions to the advances of the field of Low Temperature Physics. It is traditionally awarded in the first session of the International Conference on Lo ...

, 2014 * John Bell Prize (shared with Robert Schoelkopf), 2013 * Elected Membership, the French Academy of Sciences, 2007 * Professorship at the

College de France A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

, 2007-2012 * Europhysics-Agilent Prize, European Physical Society, 2004 * Elected Membership, the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, 2003 *

Descartes-Huygens Prize The Descartes-Huygens Prize is an yearly scientific prize created in 1995 by the French and the Dutch governments, and attributed to two scientists of international level, a French one chosen by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschapp ...

, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, 1995 *

Prize Ampère A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

, the French Academy of Science, 1991

Noteworthy publications

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

* http://qulab.eng.yale.edu/ * https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.00539 {{DEFAULTSORT:Devoret, Michael Yale University faculty Living people French physicists Year of birth missing (living people) Quantum information scientists