{"id":"gerard-mourou","type":"person","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/gerard-mourou","language":"en","name":"Gérard Mourou","name_en":"Gérard Mourou","name_ne":null,"description":"French physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics 2018","headline":"French physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics 2018","also_known_as":[],"summary":"Gérard Albert Mourou (French: [ʒeʁaʁ muʁu]; born 22 June 1944) is a French scientist and pioneer in the field of electrical engineering and lasers.  He was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, along with Donna Strickland, for the invention of chirped pulse amplification, a technique later used to create ultrashort-pulse, very high-intensity (petawatt) laser pulses.","summary_more":["In 1994, Mourou and his team at the University of Michigan discovered that the balance between the self-focusing refraction (see Kerr effect) and self-attenuating diffraction by ionization and rarefaction of a laser beam of terawatt intensities in the atmosphere creates \"filaments\" that act as waveguides for the beam, thus preventing divergence."],"facts":[{"key":"born","label":"Born","values":[{"text":"22 June 1944","date":"1944-06-22"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q556543#P569"}},{"key":"birthplace","label":"Place of birth","values":[{"text":"Albertville","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q159469"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q556543#P19"}},{"key":"citizenship","label":"Citizenship","values":[{"text":"France","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q142"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q556543#P27"}},{"key":"occupation","label":"Occupation","values":[{"text":"physicist","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q169470"},{"text":"university teacher","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1622272"},{"text":"researcher","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1650915"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q556543#P106"}},{"key":"education","label":"Education","values":[{"text":"Pierre and Marie Curie University","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1144549","end":"1970"},{"text":"Grenoble Alpes University","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q945876"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q556543#P69"}},{"key":"awards","label":"Awards","values":[{"text":"Knight of the Legion of Honour","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10855271","date":"2012-07-14"},{"text":"IEEE Quantum Electronics Award","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2122261","date":"2004"},{"text":"Frederic Ives Medal","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1452721","date":"2016"},{"text":"Charles Hard Townes Award","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1064731","date":"2009"},{"text":"Berthold Leibinger Zukunftspreis","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q827986","date":"2016"},{"text":"R. W. Wood Prize","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1745238","date":"1995"},{"text":"Lazare-Carnot Prize","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20723637","date":"2007"},{"text":"Nobel Prize in Physics","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q38104","date":"2018"},{"text":"honorary doctorate at the Laval University","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q51527076"},{"text":"Fellow of the Optical Society","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7072982"},{"text":"IEEE Fellow","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q111734"},{"text":"Fellow of the American Physical Society","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41955909"},{"text":"Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q708269","date":"2018"},{"text":"IEEE David Sarnoff Award","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5970344","date":"1999"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q556543#P166"}}],"office":null,"sections":[],"cited":[],"cited_from":null,"videos":[],"last_reviewed":null,"organizations":[],"same_as":["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Mourou","https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q556543"],"faq":[{"q":"When was Gérard Mourou born?","a":"Gérard Mourou was born on 22 June 1944 in Albertville."},{"q":"Where did Gérard Mourou study?","a":"Gérard Mourou was educated at Pierre and Marie Curie University, Grenoble Alpes University."}],"related":[{"name":"Alain Aspect","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/alain-aspect"},{"name":"Albert Fert","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/albert-fert"},{"name":"Alfred Kastler","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/alfred-kastler"},{"name":"André Frédéric Cournand","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/andre-frederic-cournand"},{"name":"André Michel Lwoff","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/andre-michel-lwoff"},{"name":"Anne L'Huillier","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/anne-l-huillier"},{"name":"Charles Nicolle","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/charles-nicolle"},{"name":"Charles Richet","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/charles-richet"},{"name":"Claude Cohen-Tannoudji","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/claude-cohen-tannoudji"},{"name":"François Jacob","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/francois-jacob"},{"name":"Gabriel Lippmann","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/gabriel-lippmann"},{"name":"Georges Charpak","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/georges-charpak"}],"places_in":[],"nearby":[],"image":{"url":"https://diginpl.com/kb-img/gerard-mourou-40c8084a5a.jpg","width":500,"height":750,"license":"CC BY-SA 2.0","credit":"École polytechnique","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:G%C3%A9rard_Mourou,_2014.jpg"},"sources":[{"label":"Wikipedia (English): Gérard Mourou","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Mourou","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"},{"label":"Wikidata item Q556543","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q556543","license":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"},{"label":"Image: Gérard Mourou, 2014.jpg by École polytechnique (CC BY-SA 2.0)","url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:G%C3%A9rard_Mourou,_2014.jpg","license":null}],"license":{"text":"CC BY-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/","facts":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"},"attribution":"Text from the Wikipedia article Gérard Mourou, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page's text is shared under the same licence. Facts from Wikidata (CC0). Image: Gérard Mourou, 2014.jpg — École polytechnique, CC BY-SA 2.0.","cite":"\"Gérard Mourou\". DigiNepal. Last updated 1 November 2026. https://diginpl.com/people/gerard-mourou. Retrieved 5 November 2026.","date_modified":"2026-11-01T06:59:19Z","facts_checked":"2026-11-05","alternates":{"html":"https://diginpl.com/people/gerard-mourou","en":"https://diginpl.com/people/gerard-mourou","ne":"https://diginpl.com/people/gerard-mourou?lang=ne"}}