Fresnel Prize of the European Physical Society for the year 2009 is awarded to Prof. Tobias Kippenberg

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Fresnel Prize of the European Physical Society for the year 2009 is awarded to Prof. Tobias Kippenberg

21 May 2009 No Comment

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Tobias Kippenberg was born in 1976 in Berlin. Fellow of the foundation for studies “Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”, he studied physics at the Technical University of Aachen. In 1999, he studied at Caltech (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA) where he spent his dissertation in 2004. In late 2005, he returned to Germany and founded the group of young researchers “Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements” in the department of Prof. Theodor W. Hänsch, who won Nobel Prize in physics.

His research work is one of the main contributions in the field of optomechanical with microrésonateurs and their application to metrology. These include observing the fundamental predictions of quantum mechanics. With the aim of improving the sensitivity of conventional devices such as interferometers, Tobias Kippenberg and his team have developed systems optomechanical allowing the forecast objects “palpable” for the first time. To do this they used resonators glass shaped ring placed on silicon chips with a diameter of about 100 micro-m. Many optomechanical phenomena are observed on these systems for some time. In 2006, the team of researchers has shown that the light pressure exerted by the photons could be used for mechanical cooling systems. This innovative process, which corresponds to a cooling laser quantum particles isolated, could achieve the fundamental quantum state of an object. According to recent measurements, this method would allow researchers to already cool the system to oscillatory sixtieth of the energy of the state. Optomechanical experiments is used for basic research but may also be useful in some applications, to improve the technical methods such as atomic force microscopy for example.

In addition, Tobias Kippenberg has also led to work on the application of metrology microrésonateurs for obtaining frequency combs. For this work, Mr. Kippenberg, Dr. Ronald Holzwarth and doctoral Pascal received Del’Haye Helmholtz Award of the Federal Office of Physics and Metrology (PTB). In December 2007, Prof. Kippenberg has also won the ERC Starting Grant of European Research (European Research Council, ERC), for high-level researchers. As a student, he already won the 1996 Physics Prize of the competition “Jugend forscht and arrived first at the European contest for young researchers in Helsinki.