The Quantum Electronics and Optics Division (QEOD) of the European Physical Society is happy to announce its 2021 and 2023 prizes. The following prizes are attributed:

• EPS-QEOD Quantum Electronics Prize
  Miles Padgett, Vahid Sandoghdar and Giulio Cerullo

• EPS-QEOD Fresnel Prizes
  Xiaochun Gong and Zuo Chao

• EPS-QEOD Thesis Prizes
  Andrea Schirato, Shima Rajabali, Gur Lubin and Sebastian Ecker

Download the complete announcement with all prizes and biographies of the winners here. The prizes were awarded at CLEO®/Europe-EQEC 2023 on Tuesday 27th June 2023 in Munich, Germany.

More info

• Press release
• Website of EPS QEOD
  

Images by Stefan Heigl - more on the CLEO©Europe/EQEC website

The first 2019 Vladilen Letokhov Medal, jointly presented by the European Physical Society and the Russian Academy of Sciences is awarded to

• Prof. Dr. Ferenc Krausz, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) and Chair for Experimental Physics Laser Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich.

The prize is awarded to Prof. Krausz “for his contribution to the development of high-field laser physics, in particular for pioneering attosecond physics, through which real-time views of electron motion in atoms, molecules, and solids have become possible”.

Ferenc Krausz studied Electrical Engineering and Physics in Budapest, received his Ph.D. and Habilitation in laser physics at the Vienna University of Technology (VUT) in 1991 and 1993, respectively, where he became full professor in 1999. In Vienna, he and his co-workers were able, for the first time, to generate and measure light pulses of attosecond duration. Since 2004, he has been director at MPQ and chair of experimental physics – laser physics – at LMU Munich, in Garching, Germany. He also founded the Centre for Advanced Laser Applications (CALA) in Garching, which he leads as director. With his seminal advancements in few-cycle laser technology, Ferenc Krausz and his team have pioneered the generation and application of ultrashort, intense optical light pulses with tailored waveform. These permit to reproducibly generate isolated attosecond pulses, and – together with them – to probe electron motion in atoms, molecules, and solids on their natural, attosecond-femtosecond timescale. Among the exciting applications of his work is the possibility to implement light-wave driven electronics for scaling ultrafast information processing to the petahertz regime. Furthermore, Ferenc Krausz and his team made seminal contributions to the development of high-peak and high-average power ultrafast laser systems with tailored light fields. These enable the generation of well-controlled high-energy photons, electrons and ions for novel applications in cancer medicine. His most recent efforts focus on evaluating the potential of infrared molecular fingerprinting of blood for early cancer detection.

Ferenc Krausz is a highly-cited scientist and has been named as Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate (Thomson Reuters, 2015). He has been awarded numerous honours and is a member of a variety of national and international scientific associations, such as OSA, the German National Academy, Leopoldina, and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

More info about the Vladilen Letokhov Medal on the EPS QEOD website

The European Physical Society
The Quantum Electronics and Optics Division
The Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Division
The Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences

are happy to announce the 2019 Vladilen Letokhov Medal . 

The call for nominations is now open.

Overview

Established in memory of Vladilen Letokhov (1939-2009), former Vice-Director of the Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences and pioneer in several fields of laser physics, the Letokhov Medal aims at recognizing outstanding contributions in laser-matter interaction, in particular spectroscopy of atoms and molecules, laser manipulation of atoms, and strong field processes. The prize consists of a medal, a certificate and a monetary award of 5000 euros. The medal will be presented every odd year at a major conference alternatively sponsored by the Quantum Electronics and Optics Division and the Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Division of the EPS. In 2019, it will be awarded at the 13th European Conference on Atoms, Molecules and Photons (ECAMP).

Details of the application procedure and information required are given below.

Nominations are to be received on line by December 15th, 2018.

The medal will be awarded without restriction of nationality of the recipient. The award shall be preferentially awarded to a single person. However, in exceptional cases, it can be shared by up to three recipients when all of them have contributed equally to the same achievement. Nominations are active for three years. Self-nominations will not be considered. The nomination package must include:

• A nomination letter of no more than 5000 characters evaluating the qualifications of the nominee(s) and indicating the exceptional achievement(s) of the nominee(s) and his/her pioneering contribution(s), as well as a suggestion for a proposed short citation.
• For a nomination of a team of more than one person (but at most three), the nomination letter should clearly specify the individual contribution of each nominee to the awarded work.
• A two-page biographical sketch of the nominee(s).
• A list of the most important publications of the nominee(s) with the 10 most important articles highlighted.
• At least two but no more than four letters of support (which should not come from the same institution as the nominator or the nominee).

On line Submission Details

All material must be prepared in English and combined into either a single consolidated PDF file or a ZIP archive.
Please click the following link to access the submission site: http://qeod.epsdivisions.org/LM

MULHOUSE, [29 May 2017] – The European Physical Society is delighted to announce the 2017 winners of its two most prestigious prizes in Quantum Electronics and Optics. These prizes, awarded only once every two years, recognize the highest level of achievements in fundamental and applied research in optical physics. The awards will be presented in a special Plenary Ceremony on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 during the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe (CLEO^®/Europe) and the European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC), held in Munich, Germany.

2017 Prize for Fundamental Aspects of Quantum Electronics and Optics: Niek F. van Hulst

The 2017 Prize for Fundamental Aspects of Quantum Electronics and Optics is awarded to Prof. Niek van Hulst, ICREA research professor at ICFO, The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain. The Prize is awarded to Professor van Hulst “For pioneering contributions to nano-optics and its applications to molecular spectroscopy and to ultrafast light-matter interactions.”