Alain Aspect, John Clauser, Anton Zeilinger share 2022 Nobel prize in Physics for works in quantum tech

Three scientists jointly won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their work on quantum information science that has significant applications, for example in the field of encryption.

Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for discovering the way that particles known as photons can be linked, or “entangled,” with each other even when they are separated by large distances.

Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger have figured in Nobel speculation for more than a decade. In 2010 they won the Wolf Prize in Israel, seen as a possible precursor to the Nobel.

Last year the prize was awarded to three scientists—Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi—whose work has helped to explain and predict complex forces of nature, thereby expanding our understanding of climate change.

A week of Nobel Prize announcements kicked off Monday with Swedish scientist Svante Paabo receiving the award in medicine Monday for unlocking secrets of Neanderthal DNA that provided key insights into our immune system.

They continue with chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the economics award on Oct. 10.

The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on Dec. 10. The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895.

Nobel Committee press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 to Alain Aspect, Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France,  John F. Clauser, J.F. Clauser & Assoc., Walnut Creek, CA, U.S., and Anton Zeilinger, University of Vienna, Austria, “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”