Ben-Gurion University nano researcher to receive prestigious award for laser science and quantum physics

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Prof. Ron Folman has been named as a recipient of the prestigious 2011 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics.

The award is presented annually in Utah for outstanding contributions to the field of physics in honor of Willis E. Lamb Jr., who was the 1955 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Folman, a quantum physicist and a member of BGU's Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, is head of BGU's Atom Chip Lab and its nanofabrication facility. The facility serves dozens of BGU researchers, as well as the Israeli high tech industry, and provides advanced chips to laboratories around the world.

Prof. Folman's research relates to quantum optics and specifically matter-wave optics (i.e. atom optics with ultra-cold atoms). The Atom Chip Lab utilizes chips that interface with single atoms or groups of atoms for fundamental studies of quantum mechanics-related questions, and the development of applications that include precision clocks, inertial navigation, gravitational field sensing, magnetic sensing, and quantum communications and computing.

"Nanotechnology is one of the key areas in which BGU has quickly established a worldwide reputation due to the breakthrough innovations by researchers like Prof. Ron Folman," explains Doron Krakow, executive vice president of American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. With the University's new state of the art nanotechnology facilities, we expect to yield significant discoveries."

The Award will be presented at the 41st Winter Colloquium on the Physics of Quantum Electronics, an annual physics conference in Utah in January 2011, which attracts the world's experts in laser and quantum physics.

Provided by American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev