News | Tuesday, 4 October 2022
Anton Zeilinger receives Nobel Prize in Physics
Photo: Austrian Academy of Sciences
Austrian quantum physicist and Leopoldina member Anton Zeilinger is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022. Zeilinger receives this distinction together with quantum scientists Alain Aspect (France) and John F. Clauser (USA). The three quantum researchers are honoured for their groundbreaking experiments with quantum-mechanical entanglement states, in which two particles behave like a single entity even when separated. According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, their results have paved the way for new quantum information technologies.
The President of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Gerald Haug, congratulates Anton Zeilinger on this prestigious award: “This year's Nobel Prize in Physics recognises significant research results which have laid the foundation for a new era in quantum technology. We are very pleased to have Anton Zeilinger, a German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina member from Austria, among the laureates.”
Anton Zeilinger's research led to new insights into quantum technology and a new understanding regarding the interpretation of quantum mechanics. He provided work on quantum information and quantum cryptography. In 1997, he succeeded in demonstrating the entanglement of more than two particles, also called quantum teleportation. This involves a direct transfer of a light particle's state, overcoming time and space. This process is a quantum communication procedure in which no particles in the classical sense are transferred from one place to another, but only their quantum state. Further developments eventually led to quantum cryptography, which also uses the entanglement of particles. This technique enables tap-proof encryption of messages and data transmissions.
Anton Zeilinger (born 1945) studied physics and mathematics at the University of Vienna (Austria), where he received his doctorate in 1971. After his habilitation in 1979, Zeilinger researched and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston (USA), at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), in Oxford (UK) and Paris (France), among others. In 1999, he was appointed professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna. From 2013 to 2022, he was president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). Zeilinger has received numerous awards for his research, including the Descartes Prize (2005), the Isaac Newton Medal (2008), the Wolf Prize in Physics (2010) and the Canadian John Stewart Bell Prize (2017). Zeilinger has been a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 2005. He co-authored the statement "Perspectives on Quantum Technology", published by the Leopoldina in 2015.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is currently endowed with a total of ten million Swedish kronor (equivalent to around 920,000 euros). The prize money will be divided equally between the three recipients. All Nobel Prizes are traditionally bestowed on the laureates on 10 December, the anniversary of founder Alfred Nobel’s death.
The Leopoldina has more than 1,600 members, with a current 36 Nobel laureates among them.
