October 4, 2022
ISTA congratulates Nobel Prize Winner Anton Zeilinger
One of ISTA’s founders receives 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics
For their pioneering experiments in quantum physics, Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger are awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. Anton Zeilinger from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences not only made Austria one of the global centers of frontier quantum research, but he also lit the initial spark to found the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). The Institute congratulates all three laureates!
It is not only scientific excellence that connects Anton Zeilinger with the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). The Institute would not exist without him. At the European Forum Alpbach in August 2002, he proposed a bold idea: to establish an excellence-oriented, globally leading institution for basic research in Austria. His strong impetus and powerful vision set things in motion and resulted in the foundation of the Institute in 2006. “The Nobel Prize is the most visible honor in international science. This recognition is not only overdue for Anton’s groundbreaking work, but it’s also hugely important for Austrian science”, congratulates ISTA President Thomas Henzinger.
Zeilinger continued to shape the Institute after its establishment as vice-chair of the Board of Trustees. In 2016, he stepped down after 10 years when he became President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). As an honorary Board member, he still advises the Institute, of which he rightfully deserves to be called a founding father. Today’s chairman of the ISTA Board of Trustees Claus Raidl: “I still vividly remember the day before the official opening of the ISTA campus in June 2009. Many curious people came to the opening party, where Anton Zeilinger gave a children’s lecture of great wit and humor called From Stars to Tiny Particles – We Discover the World. His playful approach towards science spreads enthusiasm wherever he goes.”
Entangled with the mysteries of the quantum world
It was the extraordinary work of Aspect, Clauser, and Zeilinger that translated the revolutionary theory of quantum physics into experiments. Their demonstrations uncovered profound and mind-boggling properties of our natural world. Violations of the so-called Bell inequality continue to challenge our most profound intuitions about reality and causality. By exploring quantum states experimentally, driven only by curiosity, a range of new phenomena was discovered: quantum teleportation, many-particle and higher-order entanglements, and the technological prospects for quantum cryptography and quantum computation. Six research groups at ISTA (Johannes Fink, Andrew Higginbotham, Onur Hosten, Georgios Katsaros, Misha Lemeshko, and Maksym Serbyn) work in the field of quantum physics. They advance what started in the laboratories of the three newly chosen Nobel laureates.
