On Tuesday, 16 June 2009, no less than eight awards were presented within the framework of the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) at the World of Photonics Congress. The Quantum Electronics and Optics Division (QEOD) of the European Physics Society (EPS) honored both senior and junior researchers for their achievements in quantum electronic research. These awards are conferred every two years in three different areas. Christopher Dainty, who chairs the awards committee, presented the awards in the large hall at the ICM.
 
Alain Aspect was honored with the EPS Quantum Electronics Prize for Fundamental Aspects. The work that he has been doing since 1982, when he made a breakthrough with experiments in the field of quantum electronics, has revolutionized research in information processing at the quantum level and provided the basis for the development of technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum information processing. He is a member of the France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientific and of the Institut d’Optique Graduate School in Palaiseau. The EPS Quantum Electronics Prize in the category of Applied Aspects was received by the Norwegian researcher Thomas Ebbesen. Ebbesen discovered the phenomenon of extraordinary optical transmission. His research on the subject of surface plasmon photonics have led to trailblazing results for numerous optical applications. 
 
The Fresnel Awards are conferred in the categories of Fundamental Aspects and Applied Aspects to researchers under 35 years of age. The award in the first of these two categories went to Tobias Kippenberg from the Max Planck Institute in Garching, who is also active at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. In Garching, he founded a research program that focuses on opto-mechanics. Kippenberg has already received several awards for his contributions in this field. Romain Quidant, the award recipient in the Applied Aspects category, has specialized in nano optics. He conducts research on the possibilities for manipulating light with the aid of plasmons on the surface of precious metals. Since 2006, he has been heading up the research in the area of plasmon nano optics at the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona. 
 
Four young scientists were honored for outstanding doctoral theses in the area of quantum electronics or quantum optics. Fernando G.S.L. Brandao and Alexei Ourjoumtsev each received the QEOD Thesis Prize for Fundamental Aspects. Brandao works at Imperial College London’s Institute for Mathematical Sciences in the area of quantum information theory. Since Ourjoumtsev received his doctorate at the Institut d’Optique Graduate School, he – like Tobias Kippenberg – has been working for the Max Planck Institute for quantum optics in Garching. In the Applied Aspects category, Deran Maas and John C. Travers were selected ahead of the other competitors. Maas was honored for his work on semiconductor lasers at the Institute for Quantum Electronics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Within the framework of his research, Maas, who was born in the Netherlands, demonstrated a novel pulsed semiconductor laser. Travers earned the award with his doctoral thesis on nonlinear optics. He is currently employed as a scientific researcher at Imperial College London, where he also received his doctorate.
 
The presentation of the QEOD Awards prepared the congress delegates for the rest of the day’s events. Another highlight was the first ever presentation of the Herbert-Walther Award.
 

Photos:

	Alain Aspect erhielt den EPS Quantum Electronics Prize for Fundamental Aspects.
	Thomas Ebbesen wurde mit dem EPS Quantum Electronics Prize for Applied Aspects ausgezeichnet.
	Der Fresnel Preis in der Kategorie Fundamental Aspects ging an Tobias Kippenberg.
	Romain Quidant erhielt den Fresnel Preis in der Kategorie Applied Aspects.
	Fernando Brandao erhielt einen QUEO Thesis Prize for Fundamental Aspects.
	Der zweite QEOD Thesis Prize for Fundamental Aspects wurde an Alexei Ourjoumtsev verliehen.
	Deran Maas erhielt den QEOD Thesis Prize for Applied Aspects.
	John C. Travers wurde mit ebenfalls mit dem QEOD Thesis Prize for Applied Aspects ausgezeichnet.