Nicolas Gisin, born in 1952, is a Swiss physicist and professor at the University of Geneva. He studies the basic principles of quantum mechanics, quantum information, and communication. His work includes both experiments and theories in physics. He has contributed to research on secure communication methods using quantum physics and sending quantum information over long distances using regular telephone cables. He also helped start a company called ID Quantique, which provides technologies based on quantum physics.

Biography

Nicolas Gisin was born in Geneva on May 29, 1952. He earned a degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in physics before completing his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Geneva in 1981. His thesis focused on quantum and statistical physics. After working in the software and optical communication industries for several years, Gisin joined the Group of Applied Physics at the University of Geneva in 1994. There, he began researching optics. Since 2000, he has led the Department of Applied Physics as its director, overseeing a research group that studies quantum information and quantum communication. The European Research Council awarded him two consecutive ERC Advanced Grants. In 2009, he received the first biennial John Stewart Bell Prize. In 2011, he was honored with the Geneva City Prize. In 2014, Switzerland gave him the Swiss Science Prize, which is sponsored by the Foundation Marcel Benoist and presented by the National Government.

On July 17, 2014, Gisin published his book Quantum Chance: Nonlocality, Teleportation, and Other Quantum Marvels. In this book, he explains modern quantum physics and its applications without using mathematics or complex ideas. The text was translated from French into English, German, Chinese, Korean, and Russian.

Gisin played field hockey at the highest level in Switzerland and served as president of Servette HC from 2000 to 2015. During his leadership, he helped his club become the largest in Switzerland. In 2010, Servette HC was named "Club of the Year" by the European Hockey Federation. In 2014, the team won the Swiss championship for the first time in its 100-year history.

Research

• In 1995, Gisin sent a quantum cryptographic signal over a distance of 23 km through a commercial optical fiber under Lake Geneva. Later, his team increased this distance to 67 km and then to 307 km using special methods called Plug-&-Play and Coherent One Way for quantum key distribution.
• In 1997, Nicolas Gisin and his team showed that quantum particles could affect each other over distances greater than 10 km. This was the first time quantum non-locality was observed outside a laboratory, and the distance was much longer than in earlier experiments. Additional experiments later supported this result by ruling out other possible explanations for the findings.
• In the early 2000s, Gisin was the first to demonstrate quantum teleportation over long distances. In one experiment, the receiving photon was hundreds of meters away when the process that started the teleportation was completed.
• Earlier advances in quantum communication were not possible without special detectors that could sense single photons traveling through optical fibers used in telecommunications. When Gisin began his work, such detectors did not exist. Today, thanks to his research at the University of Geneva, these detectors are available for commercial use.
• Nicolas Gisin’s work brought optical fiber quantum communication close to its maximum potential. To achieve further progress, tools like quantum memories and repeaters are needed. His team developed a new method for quantum memory using crystals with rare earth elements and used it to create the first solid-state quantum memory. Recently, they demonstrated entanglement between a photon and a crystal, between two crystals, and teleportation of a photonic qubit into a solid-state memory over 25 km.
• Schrödinger’s equation is a fundamental rule in physics. In the future, new discoveries might change it, such as adding non-linear terms. However, a "Gisin theorem" shows that any deterministic non-linear changes to Schrödinger’s equation would cause true violations of relativity.
• A key feature of quantum information is the no-cloning theorem, which states that perfect copies of quantum data cannot be made. Nicolas Gisin calculated limits on how accurately quantum information can be copied using rules from relativity.
• Nicolas Gisin helped connect quantum non-locality to the security of quantum key distribution, working with scientists like Antonio Acín, Valério Scarani, Nicolas Brunner, and Stephano Pironio. This research created a new field called Device Independent Quantum Information Processing (DI-QIP).
• In 1984, Nicolas Gisin introduced stochastic Schrödinger equations. His later work with Ian C. Percival is now widely used to study how open quantum systems change over time.
• Gisin developed a method to measure Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD), a property of optical fibers that affects signal quality. This method became an international standard and was used in industry, including by a company called EXFO. It remains the most common way to test PMD in fiber cables. Gisin applied quantum concepts like weak values to improve classical telecommunications networks.
• In 2019, Nicolas Gisin showed a new type of nonlocality in quantum networks.
• In 2021, Nicolas Gisin proved that Real Quantum Theory, a version of quantum theory using real numbers instead of complex numbers, cannot explain all the connections found in quantum networks. This work was done with Antonio Acín.

Awards

• Received a prize from the Fondation Louis de Broglie in Paris for completing a PhD thesis in 1982
• Won the Product Performance Award from Magazine PC Publishing for work at the software company CPI in 1988
• Selected by the MIT Technology Review as one of ten technologies that could change the world in 2003
• Received the Descartes Prize from the European Commission for outstanding teamwork on the IST-QuCom project in 2004
• Honored with a Doctor Honoris Causa degree from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne in 2004
• Received the Prix Science de la Ville de Genève in 2007
• Named a Fellow of the European Optical Society for contributions to quantum mechanics and its applications in 2008
• Received an ERC Advanced Grant for research on "Quantum Correlations" in 2008
• Received the John Stewart Bell Prize (archived on June 4, 2014, at the Wayback Machine) for research on quantum mechanics and its applications in 2009
• Received an ERC Advanced Grant for research on "Macroscopic Entanglement in Crystals" in 2013
• Named a Thomson-Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in 2014
• Won the Swiss Science Prize 2014 from the Marcel Benoist Foundation, which is the highest Swiss science award given to one person each year
• Received the Quantum Communication, Measurement, and Computing award (QCMC'14) in 2014
• Received the Volta Medal from the University of Pavia, Italy, in 2015