IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies for Jérôme Faist

The 2018 IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies will be awarded to ETH physics professor Jérôme Faist, head of the Quantum Optoelectronics Group at the Institute for Quantum Electronics, and to Prof. Frank Tittel of Rice University (US).

by Andreas Heinz Trabesinger
Enlarged view: Jérôme Faist
Jérôme Faist (Photo: ETH Zurich/Heidi Hostettler)

Professors Faist and Tittel will receive the 2018 IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies "for pioneering contributions to the quantum cascade laser and optical chemical sensors for environmental sensing". The award ceremony will be held on 11 May 2018 in San Francisco (US).

Jérôme Faist obtained his Ph.D. in Physics at EPF Lausanne in 1989. Following a postdoctoral stay at IBM Rüschlikon, he joined Bell Laboratories in 1991, where he worked first as a postdoc and then as a member of technical staff. From 1997 to 2007, he was professor in the Physics Institute of the University of Neuchâtel. In 2007, he became professor in the Institute for Quantum Electronics of the ETH Zurich.

His central role in the invention and first demonstration of the quantum cascade (QC) laser in 1994 was recognised by the IEE premium award (1995), the IEEE/LEOS William Streifer award (1998), the Michael Lunn award (1999), the ISCS "Young Scientist" award (1999) and the Swiss National Latsis Prize (2003).

Professor Faist's present interests are the development of high performance QC lasers in the mid- and far-infrared and the physics of coherence in intersubband transitions in the presence of strong magnetic fields.

Further information on the website of the Department of Physics

The IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies 

The Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) was established in 2008 and is awarded yearly to an individual or a team of up to three people for outstanding accomplishments in the application of technology in the fields of interest of IEEE that improve the environment and/or public safety.

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