Emmanuel Hugot and Yoann Zaouter winners of the 2020 Jean Jerphagnon Award
Every year, researchers, students and industry representatives come together for the Jean Jerphagnon Award, which rewards innovation in the field of optics and photonics. This year, the jury and its president, Alain Aspect, have selected two winners. The ceremony was held as part of the Optics-Photonics Events for the Industry of the Future organized by Institut Mines-Télécom and the French Academy of Technologies. These events showcase technological innovations in a wide variety of optics industries. Two previous Jerphagnon Award winners, Nathalie Picqué from the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and Vincent Studer from the company Alvéole, gave presentations respectively on optical frequency comb spectroscopy and on microfluidics and optical imaging applied to neuroscience.
The Jean Jerphagnon Award
The Jean Jerphagnon Award, organized by Institut Mines-Télécom and the French Academy of Technologies with support from Fondation Mines-Télécom, seeks to honor the memory and extend the work of Jean Jerphagnon, telecoms engineer, inventor and researcher, who died in 2005 after leading a distinguished career, from basic research to innovation, in the field of optics and photonics. This award in the amount of €12,000 per year, aims to promote technological innovation and the diffusion of optics and photonics in all fields of application by rewarding a researcher who has conducted cutting-edge research and effectively transferred it.
Technology transfer and innovations resulting from academic research are plentiful, as illustrated by the candidates for the Jean Jerphagnon Award, many of whom lead entrepreneurial projects. This award is intended to sit at the crossroads between research and industry. The Optics-Photonics Events for the Industry of the Future provide a natural setting for bringing together players in this field to discuss the state of the art and the major advances yet to come.
On 7 July, the President of the Jury, Alain Aspect, professor at the Institut d’Optique and member of the French Academy of Technologies, presented awards to two winners who tied for first place:
- Emmanuel Hugot – Research on curved sensors
- Yoann Zaouter – Ultrashort pulse lasers
