Thomas Ebbesen (born 30 January 1954 in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

) is a Franco-Norwegian

physical chemist Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mech ...

and professor at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

in France, known for his pioneering work in nanoscience. He received the

Kavli Prize The Kavli Prize was established in 2005 as a joint venture of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation. It honors, supports, and recognizes scientists for outstan ...

in Nanoscience “for transformative contributions to the field of nano-optics that have broken long-held beliefs about the limitations of the resolution limits of optical microscopy and imaging”, together with

Stefan Hell Stefan Walter Hell HonFRMS (: born 23 December 1962) is a Romanian-German physicist and one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 "for the d ...

, and Sir

John Pendry Sir John Brian Pendry, (born 4 July 1943) is an English theoretical physicist known for his research into refractive indices and creation of the first practical " Invisibility Cloak". He is a professor of theoretical solid state physics at Impe ...

in 2014. Thomas Ebbesen obtained his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College, and a PhD from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris in the field of photo-physical chemistry. He then worked at the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory before joining the

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

Fundamental Research Laboratories in Japan in 1988 where his research shifted first to novel carbon materials such as

fullerene A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon whose molecule consists of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to seven atoms. The molecule may be a hollow sphere, ...

s (C₆₀),

graphene Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure.

and carbon nanotubes. After discovering how to mass-produce carbon nanotubes, he and his colleagues measured many of their unique features such as their mechanical and wetting properties. For his pioneering and extensive contribution to the field of carbon nanotubes, he shared the 2001 Agilent Europhysics Prize with

Sumio Iijima is a Japanese physicist and inventor, often cited as the inventor of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon nanotubes had been observed prior to his "invention", Iijima's 1991 paper generated unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and ...

Cees Dekker Cornelis "Cees" Dekker (born 7 April 1959 in Haren, Groningen) is a Dutch physicist, and Distinguished University Professor at the Technical University of Delft. He is known for his research on carbon nanotubes, single-molecule biophysics, and na ...

and Paul McEuen. While working at NEC, Ebbesen discovered a major new optical phenomenon. He found that, contrary to the then accepted theory, it was possible to transmit light extremely efficiently through subwavelength holes milled in opaque metal films under certain conditions. The phenomenon, known as extraordinary optical transmission, involves

surface plasmon Surface plasmons (SPs) are coherent delocalized electron oscillations that exist at the interface between any two materials where the real part of the dielectric function changes sign across the interface (e.g. a metal-dielectric interface, such ...

s. It has raised fundamental questions and is finding applications in broad variety of areas from chemistry to opto-electronics. Ebbesen has received several awards for the discovery of the extraordinary optical transmission such as the 2005 France Telecom Prize of the French Academy of Sciences and the 2009 Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize of the

European Physical Society The European Physical Society (EPS) is a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to promote physics and physicists in Europe through methods such as physics outreach. Formally established in 1968, its membership includes the national physical so ...

. In 1999, Thomas Ebbesen joined ISIS founded by

Jean-Marie Lehn Jean-Marie Lehn (born 30 September 1939) is a French chemist. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Donald Cram and Charles Pedersen in 1987 for his synthesis of cryptands. Lehn was an early innovator in the field of supramole ...

at the

, which he headed from 2004 to 2012. In 2017–2018, he held the L. Bettencourt chair for Technological Innovation at the Collège de France. He is currently the director of the International Center for Frontier Research in Chemistry. and the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study. Since 2005 he has developed new field of research at the interface of quantum electrodynamics and physical chemistry. His team demonstrated for the first time that material properties such as chemical reactivity could be modified by strongly coupling the molecules to the electromagnetic fluctuations of an optical cavity. For this work he was awarded the 2018 Grand Prix of the Maison de la Chimie foundation. He is a member of the Institut Universitaire de France, the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...

, the

French Academy of Science The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at t ...

and the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts. In 2019, he is awarded the CNRS Gold medal in France He is married to the pianist Masako Hayashi-Ebbesen. They have two daughters.

Awards

* NEC Research Prize 1992 * Randers Prize 2001 * Agilent Europhysics Prize 2001 * Prix France Telecom 2005 * Tomassoni Prize 2009 * Scola Physica Romana Medal 2009 * Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize 2009 * Dr. scient. h.c.,

University of Southern Denmark The University of Southern Denmark ( da, Syddansk Universitet, lit=South Danish University, abbr. SDU) is a university in Denmark that has campuses located in Southern Denmark and on Zealand. The university offers a number of joint programmes in ...

2009 *

in Nanoscience 2014 * Prix Special of the French Physics Society, 2014 * Honorary Doctorate, Oberlin College, USA 2015 * Knight of the French

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

Doctor honoris causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad ho ...

on the occasion of the

KU Leuven KU Leuven (or Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven, Belgium. It conducts teaching, research, and services in computer science, engineering, natural sciences, theology, humanities, medicine, ...

Patron Saint‘s Day 2018 * ''Quinquennial Anniversary Award'', European Materials Research Society 2018 * ''Grand prix de la fondation Maison de la Chimie'' 2018 * CNRS Gold medal 2019

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ebbesen, Thomas 1954 births Living people Nanotechnologists Carbon scientists Oberlin College alumni Pierre and Marie Curie University alumni Norwegian physical chemists Members of the French Academy of Sciences Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Norwegian expatriates in France Academic staff of the University of Strasbourg Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Kavli Prize laureates in Nanoscience