Gérard Mourou

École Polytechnique / University of Michigan

Gérard Mourou is a French physicist and professor emeritus at École Polytechnique in France and the University of Michigan. He shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics with Donna Strickland and Arthur Ashkin for their work in laser physics. Mourou and Strickland invented chirped pulse amplification (CPA), a technique that overcame the power limitations of laser amplifiers by stretching ultrashort laser pulses in time before amplification and then recompressing them, preventing damage to the amplifier while enabling dramatically higher pulse energies and peak powers. This invention transformed the field of laser science, enabling the creation of tabletop lasers with intensities previously achievable only in nuclear explosions. CPA technology is now the basis for the vast majority of high-power, ultrafast laser systems worldwide, with applications in ophthalmology (LASIK eye surgery), industrial micromachining, fundamental physics research, cancer therapy, and the study of extreme states of matter. Mourou has also been a driving force behind the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project, a pan-European research facility network aimed at producing laser pulses at the highest intensities ever achieved. He has received the Charles Hard Townes Award, the R.W. Wood Prize, the Frederic Ives Medal, and the Optica (OSA) Lifetime Achievement Award. His vision extends to using extreme lasers for nuclear waste remediation and particle acceleration.