Media Releases

Ranier Blatt wins Bell Prize for trailblazing quantum research

August 10, 2015

Award conferred at Conference on Quantum Information and Quantum Control at the University of Toronto

TORONTO, ON — On August 20th, 2015, world-renowned quan­tum physi­cist Rain­er Blatt will be award­ed a pres­ti­gious prize for his con­tri­bu­tions to the devel­op­ment of quan­tum infor­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies, dur­ing the Con­fer­ence on Quan­tum Infor­ma­tion and Quan­tum Con­trol being held at the Fields Insti­tute at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. The fourth bien­ni­al John Stew­art Bell Prize for Research on Fun­da­men­tal Issues in Quan­tum Mechan­ics and Their Appli­ca­tions, admin­is­tered by U of T’s Cen­tre for Quan­tum Infor­ma­tion & Quan­tum Con­trol, has been award­ed to Pro­fes­sor Blatt, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Inns­bruck, by an arms’-length selec­tion com­mit­tee of inter­na­tion­al experts, “for his pio­neer­ing research on quan­tum infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing with trapped ions, in par­tic­u­lar, for the recent demon­stra­tions of ana­log and dig­i­tal quan­tum sim­u­la­tors and quan­tum log­ic gates on a topo­log­i­cal­ly encod­ed qubit.”

A com­put­er that exploits the strange fea­tures of quan­tum the­o­ry is extra­or­di­nar­i­ly more pow­er­ful than any sil­i­con-based com­put­er. This dis­cov­ery of the mid 1990’s trig­gered a race to devel­op so-called quan­tum com­put­ers. One of the most promis­ing tech­nolo­gies for quan­tum com­pu­ta­tion is trapped ions (i.e. charged atoms). Pro­fes­sor Blatt is a pio­neer and leader in this tech­nol­o­gy.

Pro­fes­sor Blatt will accept the award and deliv­er a lec­ture about his work, open to the pub­lic, at 1:30 pm on Thurs­day August 20th, in the main audi­to­ri­um of the Fields Insti­tute.  More infor­ma­tion about the Bell Prize can be found at http://cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca/bell_prize/home.html and more infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence is at http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/15–16/CQIQCVI/

Con­tact infor­ma­tion:

Amr Helmy (Direc­tor, CQIQC)
(416) 946‑0199

Aephraim Stein­berg (vice-chair, Bell Prize selec­tion com­mit­tee)
(416) 978‑0713