Professor Nicolas Gisin

Professor of Quantum information and communication at the University of Geneva

Nicolas Gisin is a Swiss physicist and professor at the University of Geneva working on quantum information and communication, as well as on the foundations of quantum mechanics. His work includes both experimental and theoretical physics. His work contributed significantly to the fields of experimental quantum cryptography and long-distance quantum communication in standard telecom optical fibers. He co-founded ID Quantique, a spin-off company which is one of the world’s leaders in the field of quantum information and communication technologies.

The era of long-distance quantum communication was effectively started in 1995 by Nicolas Gisin’s experiment, in which a quantum cryptographic signal was transmitted at a distance of 23 km over a commercial optical fibre under Lake Geneva. Before becoming a quantum engineer, Nicolas Gisin worked as a classical telecommunication engineer, first in industry, next at the University. He invented a technique to measure Polarization Mode Dispersion (PDM) in optical fibers.

Major Awards:

• Swiss Science Prize 2014 awarded by the foundation Marcel Benoist. This is the highest Swiss prize for all sciences, awarded once per year to a single person (2014)
• Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing award, QCMC’14 (2014)
• Volta Medal from the University of Pavia, Italy (2015)
• ERC Advanced Grant on “Quantum Correlations” (2008)
• John Stewart Bell Prize for Research on Fundamental Issues in Quantum Mechanics and their Applications (2009)