Presenters

Wolfgang Ketterle

Wolfgang Ketterle is widely known for his research in atomic physics and laser spectroscopy, particularly in the area of ultracold atomic matter using samples of Bose-Einstein condensates. His research group at MIT has used these condensates as amplifiers for light and atoms and for high-precision atom interferometry. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize for physics with two physicists from the University of Colorado “for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates.”

Ketterle was born in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1957. He received a pre-diploma in physics from the University of Heidelberg in 1978 and earned his diploma (equivalent to a master’s degree) from the Technical University of Munich in 1982. For his Ph.D. from the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, he chose an experimental project—using laser spectroscopy to produce trace analysis of semiconductors—that proved too difficult to be carried out within the existing infrastructure. So he continued his work at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, eventually gaining the Ph.D. from both institutions in 1986. After post-doc research at Max-Planck and the University of Heidelberg, Ketterle joined the research staff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990. He became an assistant professor of physics there in 1993 and in 1998 was named John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics.

Prior to receiving the Nobel Prize, Ketterle had been awarded the I.I. Rabi Prize of the American Physical Society and the Gustav-Hertz Prize of the German Physical Society (1997), the Discover Magazine Award for Technological Innovation (1998), the Fritz London Prize for Low Temperature Physics (1999), and the Ben Franklin Medal in Physics (2000). He has been a Fellow of the American Physical Society since 1997 and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1999 and recently was elected to membership in the European Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities.