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Serge Haroche, co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics along with American David Wineland.
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PARIS (EJP)--- 68-year-old Serge Haroche, co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics along with American David Wineland, was born in a Jewish family in Casablanca, Morroco.
His father was a lawyer and his Russian-born mother a teacher. His grandparents were directors of the Alliance Francaise, an international organisation that aims to promote French language and culture around the world.
He left Morocco for France at the age of 12 when the country gained its independence.
Haroche, who is a researcher at the CNRS and a professor at the College de France and Ecole Normale Superieure, will share a $1.2 million (around 930,000 euros) grant from the Nobel Prize Committee with Wineland, a researcher at the Maryland-based National Institute of Standards and Technology and at the University of Colorado.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the two scientists Tuesday "for groundbreaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems."
Haroche and Wineland work in the field of quantum optics, which deals with the interaction between light and matter.
"Their groundbreaking methods have enabled this field of research to take the very first steps toward building a new type of superfast computer based on quantum physics," the academy said. "The research has also led to the construction of extremely precise clocks that could become the future basis for a new standard of time."
Haroche had worked closely with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji - also a French Jew of North African descent - who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997.
"I was walking with my wife going back home and when I saw the... Swedish code on my cellphone, I realised it was real and it's, you know, really overwhelming," he declared.