French and US scientists share Nobel physics prize for quantum optics work

A US and a French scientist have won the Nobel Prize in physics for work in quantum optics that paved the way for precision clocks and may lead to a new generation of super-fast computers.

Professor Serge Haroche, 68, from France's Ecole Normale Superieure, and Dr David Wineland, also 68, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, would share the prize of eight million krona (HK$9.35 million), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said yesterday.

The two scientists' research led to the development of laser-cooled atomic clocks, the world's most precise measures of time, as well as the building blocks of quantum computers, speedy machines that could solve problems such as breaking the most advanced encryption codes.

"Their groundbreaking methods have enabled this field of research to take the very first steps towards building a new type of super-fast computer based on quantum physics," the Nobel physics jury said.

"Perhaps the quantum computer will change our everyday lives in this century in the same radical way as the classical computer did in the last century."

Haroche said the award was "fairly overwhelming".

"I was in the street, passing near a bench, and was able to sit down immediately," he told journalists via a live link to Stockholm. "I was walking with my wife, when I saw the Swedish area code, I realised.