Professor Anton Zeilinger

Anton Zeilingerreceived his Ph.D. in physics and mathematics from the University of Vienna in 1971. He is currently a professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna, and a Scientific Director of the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Professor Zeilinger is one of the world’s leading quantum physicists. He works both on theoretical and experimental foundations of quantum physics, and a primary focus of his research is entanglement, the deep connectedness of distant systems. He started the field of multi-particle entanglement, which became a crucial ingredient for any future quantum computer. He carried out the first entanglement-based quantum communication, the first quantum teleportation, the first experimental quantum teleportation, and the first quantum cryptography with entangled photons. These groundbreaking achievements contributed significantly to a new understanding of fundamental issues in the interpretation of quantum mechanics, where information is the central theme. Another focus of his work has been to investigate quantum features of large particles and the transition between quantum mechanics and classical physics. Zellinger made the first experimental demonstration of quantum interference of Buckminster-Fullerenes and biologically relevant macromolecules. He is currently studying the quantum behavior of real mechanical systems, such as mechanical oscillators (micro-mirrors).

Professor Zeilinger published more than 335 scientific articles and 11 books, and presented more than 500 invited lectures worldwide. He was awarded numerous honors, including the German Order of Merit, the Senior Humboldt Award, the Klopsteg Memorial Award and the Lorenz-Oken Medal of the German Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2005, he was listed by the “New Statesman” newspaper among the “10 people who could change the world.” He is a fellow or honorary fellow of many prestigious scientific academies and societies, and recipient of two honorary doctorates. He took professorships and visiting positions at many prestigious institutions including the Technical University of Munich, the Technical University of Vienna, MIT (USA), Humboldt University (Berlin), Oxford University and the College de France in Paris. He is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China. To share his excitement about quantum physics with a broader audience, Professor Zellinger published “Einsteins Schleier” (Einstein’s Veil) in 2003, which later became a German-language bestseller.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.