Franck Laloë

Franck Laloë (born May 28, 1940) is a French quantum physicist, author, and open archive initiator. He is emeritus research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Education and career

Laloë was born in Rabat, Morocco and studied physics at the École Polytechnique in Paris from 1960 to 1962. He studied at University of Paris VI (later Pierre and Marie Curie University) for a two-part doctorate. His PhD from 1963 to 1968 (Doctorat de troisième cycle) involved research on spin-polarized helium-3 systems. He obtained Doctorat d'État in 1970. He worked for the CNRS and became director from 1978.

Laloë is the initiator of the open archive for scientific works, HAL, created in 2001 at the Centre pour la communication scientifique directe (CCSD) of the CNRS. He deals with digital archiving on optical media (CD and DVD) and is president of a corresponding research group (GIS-DON).

Laloë's research deals with optical pumping, acoustics (including chaos), superfluid helium-3, foundations of quantum mechanics and ultracold quantum gases (Bose-Einstein condensates), as well as optical information storage technology. the Prix Aimé Cotton in 1970 from the Société Française de Physique, and in 2000 the Prix des trois physiciens from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and the Eugène Bloch Foundation.