Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturain

Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturain
Born (1965-10-11) 11 October 1965
Manresa, Catalonia, Spain
Residence Germany
Nationality Spain
Alma mater Complutense University of Madrid
Known for Trapped ion quantum computer
Tensor network states
Awards Prince of Asturias Award (2006)
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2008)
Wolf Prize in Physics (2013)
Max Planck Medal (2018)
Scientific career
Fields Physicist
Institutions Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics
Thesis Interaction of two-level atoms with no-classical states of light[1] (1991)
Doctoral advisor Luis Lorenzo Sánchez Soto
Notable students Frank Verstraete,
Guifré Vidal

Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturain (born 11 October 1965) is a Spanish physicist. He is one of the pioneers of the field of quantum computing and quantum information theory. He is the recipient of the 2006 Prince of Asturias Award in technical and scientific research.

Biography

He graduated from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1988 and moved to the United States in 1991 to work as a postdoctoral scientist with Peter Zoller in the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in University of Colorado at Boulder. Between 1991 and 1996, he was teaching physics in the Ciudad Real Faculty of Chemistry, University of Castilla-La Mancha.[2]

In 1996, he became professor in the Institut für Theoretische Physik in Innsbruck, Austria, and in 2001 he became a director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, where he heads the Theory Division. At the same time, he was appointed Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Munich. He is a Distinguished Visiting Professor and Research Advisor at ICFO - the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona since its foundation in 2002. He has been a member of research teams at the universities of Harvard, Technical University of Munich, Hamburg, UCSB, Hannover, Bristol, Paris, CEA/Saclay, École Normale Supérieure, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[3]

His research is focused on quantum optics, the quantum theory of information and quantum many-body physics. According to his theories, quantum computing will revolutionize the information society and lead to much more efficient and secure communication of information. His joint work with Peter Zoller on ion trap quantum computation opened up the possibility of experimental quantum computation, and his joint work on optical lattices jumpstarted the field of quantum simulation. He has also made seminal contributions in the fields of quantum information theory, degenerated quantum gases, quantum optics, and renormalization group methods.[4] As of 2017 Juan Ignacio Cirac has published more than 440 articles in the most prestigious journals[5] and is one of the most cited authors in his fields of research.[6][7]

Ignacio Cirac has been granted multiple awards, notable ones being the 2006 Prince of Asturias Award[3], the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award[8] in the Basic Sciences category ex aequo with Peter Zoller, and The Franklin Institute's 2010 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics (jointly with David J. Wineland and Peter Zoller). He was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics with Peter Zoller in 2013[9]. In 2018 he received the Max Planck Medal of the German Physical Society[10].

References

  1. Original in Spanish: Interaccion de atomos de dos niveles con estados no clasicos de luz, cf. "UCM Tesis". Library, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Retrieved 2018-01-30.
  2. Leopoldina (ed.). "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). leopoldina.org. Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  3. 1 2 "Juan Ignacio Cirac: Prince of Asturias Award for Technical & Scientific Research 2006". fpa.es. Fundación Princesa de Asturias. Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  4. Leopoldina German Academy of Sciences (ed.). "Member's Profile". leopoldina.org. Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  5. "Resume - Juan Ignacio Cirac" (pdf). MPI for Quantum Optics. Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  6. "2258 Highly Cited Researchers (h>100) according to their Google Scholar Citations public profiles". webometrics.info. Retrieved 2018-01-21. (Cirac is no. 592 on the list)
  7. "2017 Highly Cited Researchers". clarivate.com. Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  8. "Ignacio Cirac, Frontiers of Knowledge Laureate". Fundación BBVA. Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  9. "Prof. Juan Ignacio Cirac Winner of Wolf Prize in Physics - 2013". Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  10. Olivia Meyer-Streng. "Prof. Ignacio Cirac receives Max-Planck Medal from the German Physical Society". mpq.mpg.de. Retrieved 2018-01-21.

Lectures and panels

  • Video of panel discussion, "Harnessing Quantum Physics" with Ignacio Cirac, Michele Mosca, Avi Wigderson, Daniel Gottesman, Peter Shor and Dorit Aharonov, at the Quantum to Cosmos festival
  • "J. Ignacio Cirac: Quantum Optics and Simulations with Atoms and Photonic Crystals". youtube.com. IQOQI Innsbruck. 2016-02-17. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.