Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
Cohen-Tannoudji in 2007
Born (1933-04-01) 1 April 1933
Alma materÉcole normale supérieure
University of Paris
Known forLaser cooling
Quantum Mechanics
Spouse
Jacqueline Veyrat
(m. 1958)
Children3
AwardsPrix Paul Langevin (1963)
Prix Jean Ricard (1971)
Young Medal and Prize (1979)
Ampère Prize (1979)
Lilienfeld Prize (1992)
Matteucci Medal (1994)
Harvey Prize (1996)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1997)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsCollege de France
University of Paris
École normale supérieure (Paris)
Doctoral advisorAlfred Kastler
Doctoral studentsSerge Haroche
Jean Dalibard
Claude Fabre

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (French pronunciation: [klod kɔɛn tanudʒi]; born 1 April 1933) is a French physicist at the École normale supérieure in Paris. He is known for his experiments in laser cooling. He was the first to show that it is possible to cool far beyond the limit expected by sub-Doppler cooling, below the recoil temperature.

He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips for research in methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms.