Olli V. Lounasmaa Memorial Prize 2016 awarded to Michel Devoret

Michel Devoret is Professor of Applied Physics and Director of the Applied Physics Nanofabrication Lab at Yale University (New Haven, USA). He is an awarded scientist, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences.

For more than four decades Devoret has pioneered the discovery, understanding and application of quantum phenomena revealed in the low temperature regime.

– His contributions to the field of quantum electronics have set the stage for major advances in our knowledge of, and control over macroscopic quantum devices and systems, says the Chairperson of the Selection Committee, and the Director of the Low Temperature Laboratory in Aalto University, Pertti Hakonen.

– Devoret's scientific and technological foundations in superconducting circuits hold great potential to emerge as a dominant technology for quantum computation.

The Memorial Prize is a tribute to the Finnish academician and pioneer of ultra low temperature physics Olli V. Lounasmaa (1930–2002). He was an eminent experimentalist, who developed many of the techniques that are in use in the present-day advanced cryogenics. He was also the founding father of the strong research tradition in Finland in low temperature physics and in neuroscience.

The O.V. Lounasmaa Memorial Prize is granted to scientists who have made outstanding contributions to the advances of low temperature physics and related fields.

Past recipients are Alexander Andreev (2012) for his pioneering research on the theory of superconductivity and quantum crystals, Seiji Ogawa in 2008 for his research on functional magnetic resonance (brain) imaging, and John Clarke in 2004 for his work on ultra-sensitive SQUIDs and their applications.

Further information:
Professor Pertti Hakonen
pertti.hakonen@aalto.fi
Tel: +358 50 344 2316
Low Temperature Laboratory
Department of Applied Physics
Aalto University School of Science