Raymond Julien Joseph Laflamme, OC FRSC (French: [ʁɛmɔ̃ ʒyljɛ̃ ʒozɛf laflam]; July 19, 1960 – June 19, 2025) was a Canadian theoretical physicist. He founded and directed the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo until June 2017. He also worked as a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and as an associate faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Laflamme held the title of Canada Research Chair in Quantum Information. In December 2017, he was appointed to the Order of Canada.

As a student of Stephen Hawking, Laflamme became well-known for proving that time does not reverse in a contracting universe, along with Don Page. Hawking described this discovery in his book A Brief History of Time in the chapter titled The Arrow of Time. Later, Laflamme became famous for his work in quantum computing and quantum information theory. In 2005, his research team built the world’s largest quantum information processor with 12 qubits. In 2006, he co-authored the book An Introduction to Quantum Computing with Phillip Kaye and Michele Mosca. In 2024, he co-authored the book Building Quantum Computers with Shayan Majidy and Christopher Wilson.

Laflamme’s research focused on studying how quantum mechanics affects information, creating methods to protect quantum information from errors using quantum control and error correction for computing and cryptography, applying quantum information processing ideas using nuclear magnetic resonance to develop scalable control methods for quantum systems, and designing blueprints for quantum information processors, such as those using linear optical quantum computing.

Biography

Raymond Julien Joseph Laflamme was born on July 19, 1960, in Quebec City, Quebec, to a father who was a medical doctor and a mother who was a dietician. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Université Laval in Canada. He later studied at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, where he earned the Part III of the Mathematical Tripos degree in 1984. His PhD advisor was Stephen Hawking. In his book A Brief History of Time, Hawking wrote that Laflamme and Don Page helped him understand that time does not reverse in a contracting universe. Hawking wrote in a copy of the book: "To Raymond, who showed me that the arrow of time is not a boomerang. Thank you for all your help. Stephen."

After earning his PhD, Laflamme worked as a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia. In 1990, he returned to Cambridge as a Research Fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He later joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he was an Oppenheimer Fellow. In 1998, quantum teleportation, including his research on using nuclear spins to demonstrate the process, was listed as one of the Top Ten Breakthroughs of the Year by the journal Science. In 2001, he joined the newly created Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Physics and Astronomy department at the affiliated University of Waterloo. There, he founded the Institute for Quantum Computing in 2002.

In 2003, Laflamme became the director of the Quantum Information program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He also served as the scientific director of QuantumWorks, Canada's national research group focused on quantum information science, and held the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Information.

In June 2017, Laflamme left his role as director of the Institute for Quantum Computing. In September 2017, he was appointed the John von Neumann Chair in Quantum Information at the University of Waterloo, where he continued researching error correction in quantum systems. He remained a Canada Research Chair and an Associate Faculty member at Perimeter Institute.

Laflamme passed away from cancer in Waterloo, Ontario, on June 19, 2025, at the age of 64.

Scientific work

Laflamme began his career working in areas of physics related to the universe's structure and the smallest particles. However, he became well-known as a leading scientist in the field of quantum information theory. During his time at Los Alamos, Laflamme participated in the practical testing of devices that process quantum information using nuclear magnetic resonance.

Laflamme developed the mathematical rules for quantum error-correcting codes, which became a major area of research. Along with colleagues Cesar Miquel, Juan Pablo Paz, and Wojciech H. Zurek, he created the most efficient quantum error-correcting code.

Two of his important and widely referenced studies focused on the power of limited sets of states or operations. In work with Emanuel Knill, he introduced a quantum computational model called one clean qubit (DQC1). In this model, a complete set of quantum gates is available, but all qubits except one are in a maximally mixed state. This model defines a category of computational difficulty that is believed to be between classical computation (BPP) and full quantum computing (BQP). It can solve certain problems efficiently that are thought to be difficult for classical computers, but it is considered less powerful than full quantum computing.

Together with Knill and Gerard J. Milburn, Laflamme demonstrated that linear optics, combined with photon-counting measurements and feed-forward, can enable efficient universal quantum computation when starting with a suitable multi-photon Fock state (KLM protocol). This discovery was significant for optical methods of quantum computing because it removed the need for direct interactions between photons and established the basis for linear optical quantum computing and, as a restriction of the KLM model, for boson sampling.

According to Scopus, Laflamme had an h-index of 59 as of July 2025, with over 200 scientific journal articles cited more than 24,000 times.

In a 2013 interview, Laflamme described the importance of his work as follows: "Quantum information will change your life, your children's lives, and your grandchildren's lives. This is what I hope to see before I pass away: a full quantum revolution in progress."

Awards and honours

• Received the Escolle Medal in 2005 – given by the Université Laval Alumni Association to recognize former graduates for their outstanding work in their careers and contributions to society.
• Became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2008.
• Won the Ontario Premier's Discovery Award in Natural Sciences and Engineering in 2008.
• Became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2011.
• Became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011.
• Received an honorary degree from Université de Sherbrooke in 2012.
• Awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2013.
• Received the CAP-CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics in 2017.
• Appointed to the Order of Canada in 2017 for his outstanding work as an administrator and researcher who helped advance quantum science and technology in Canada; officially invested in 2019.
• Honored posthumously by IYQ 2025, with the Wyoming-based publication Quantum Zeitgeist noting: "…[T]he memory of Professor Laflamme highlights the importance of community in quantum science. … Through textbooks and national efforts, [Laflamme] helped train many quantum researchers, helping the global quantum field grow, supported by IYQ’s partner, TFD."
• After his death, The Perimeter Institute created the Raymond Laflamme Postdoctoral Fellowship in his honor, with an initial US$1,000,000 matching fund commitment.

Media appearances

Laflamme was a scientist in the award-winning documentary The Quantum Tamers, which was produced by the Perimeter Institute. The film had its first showing in Canada in October 2009 at the Quantum to Cosmos festival in Waterloo, Ontario. Laflamme also took part in a discussion panel titled "Wired 24/7" on The Agenda With Steve Paikin with Neil Gershenfeld, Jaron Lanier, Neal Stephenson, and Tara Hunt. This event happened at the same festival. The next year, Laflamme was a speaker at the 2010 TEDx event in Waterloo, Ontario.

Laflamme took part in events during the grand opening of the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre at the University of Waterloo. He joined a panel discussion called "Bridging Worlds" with Ivan Semeniuk, Mike Lazaridis, Thomas Brzustowski, and Chad Orzel at the centre’s Open House in 2012.

As part of the grand opening events, the Kitchener–Waterloo Symphony performed a concert titled Quantum: Music at the Frontier of Science. Laflamme helped create the story for the concert.

Laflamme spoke at the BrainSTEM: Your Future is Now festival, which took place from September 30 to October 6, 2013.

Selected publications

• Gregory, Ruth and Laflamme, Raymond (May 10, 1993). "Black Strings and p-Branes are Unstable." Physical Review Letters. 70 (19): 2837–2840. arXiv: hep-th/9301052. Bibcode: 1993PhRvL..70.2837G. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.70.2837. PMID 10053666.
• Gregory, Ruth and Laflamme, Raymond (October 10, 1994). "The Instability of Charged Black Strings and p-Branes." Nuclear Physics B. 428 (1–2): 399–434. arXiv: hep-th/9404071. Bibcode: 1994NuPhB.428..399G. doi: 10.1016/0550-3213(94)90206-2.
• Knill, Emanuel and Laflamme, Raymond (April 26, 1996). "A Theory of Quantum Error-Correcting Codes." Physical Review Letters. 84 (11): 2525–2528. arXiv: quant-ph/9604034. Bibcode: 2000PhRvL..84.2525K. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.2525. PMID 11018926.
• Laflamme, Raymond; Miquel, Cesar; Paz, Juan Pablo; and Zurek, Wojciech H. (July 1, 1996). "Perfect quantum error-correcting code." Physical Review Letters. 77 (1): 198–201. arXiv: quant-ph/9602019. Bibcode: 1996quant.ph..2019L. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.198. PMID 10061806.
• Nielsen, Michael Aaron; Knill, Emanuel; and Laflamme, Raymond (November 5, 1998). "Complete quantum teleportation using nuclear magnetic resonance." Nature. 396 (6706): 52–55. arXiv: quant-ph/9811020. Bibcode: 1998Natur.396…52N. doi: 10.1038/23891.
• Knill, Emanuel; Zurek, Wojciech H.; and Laflamme, Raymond (January 16, 1998). "Resilient quantum computation." Science. 279 (5349): 342–345. Bibcode: 1998Sci…279..342K. doi: 10.1126/science.279.5349.342.
• Knill, Emanuel and Laflamme, Raymond (December 21, 1998). "On the Power of One Bit of Quantum Information." Physical Review Letters. 81 (25): 5672. arXiv: quant-ph/9802037. Bibcode: 1998PhRvL..81.5672K. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.5672.
• Knill, Emanuel; Laflamme, Raymond; and Viola, Lorenza (March 13, 2000). "Theory of quantum error correction for general noise." Physical Review Letters. 84 (11): 2525–2528. arXiv: quant-ph/9604034. Bibcode: 2000PhRvL..84.2525K. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.2525. PMID 11018926.
• Knill, Emanuel; Laflamme, Raymond; and Milburn, Gerard (January 4, 2001). "A scheme for efficient quantum computation with linear optics." Nature. 409 (6816): 46–52. Bibcode: 2001Natur.409…46K. doi: 10.1038/35051009.
• Knill, Emanuel; Laflamme, Raymond; and Viola, Lorenza (March 13, 2000). "Theory of quantum error correction for general noise." Physical Review Letters. 84 (11): 2525–2528. arXiv: