Nathalie Picqué

Nathalie Picqué (born Demeber 2, 1973) is a French physicist working at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in the field Frequency Combs, where she studies ultra-high resolution spectroscopy using ultrashort pulses of light combined with Fourier-transform spectroscopy to reveal the fine chemistry of samples, in particular in the mid-infrared, demonstrating resolving power in excess of 1,000,000,000,000.

Education and career Nathalie Picqué received a master's degree in laser physics from Paris-Sorbonne University (formerly known as Pierre and Marie Curie University) and Ecole Polytechnique, in Paris, France, and completed a doctoral degree in physics from Paris-Saclay University (formerly known as Université Paris-Sud), in Orsay, France in 1998. In 2000 she was awarded the Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship to work at the European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy in Florence, Italy. In 2001, she became a staff scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Orsay, France.

She joined Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in 2008 as a part-time visiting scientist, before relocating her laboratory in Garching while becoming the leader of the research group. She is now a scientist in the Emeritus Group Laser Spectroscopy at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in, Germany, where she works together with Nobel Prize laureate Theodor W. Hänsch on dual-combs spectroscopy.

Awards and honors 1999 Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellowship 2007 Bronze Medal of the CNRS 2008 Jean-Jerphagnon Prize (French Physical Society, French Optical Society, French Academy of Technologies) 2010 Beller Lectureship Award 2013 Coblentz Award 2019 Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA) 2021 Advanced Grant (European Research Council) 2022 Helmholtz Prize (PTB) 2022 Falling Walls Science Breakthrough in Physical Sciences 2023 : Grand Prix Cécile DeWitt-Morette / École de Physique des Houches of the French Academy of Sciences. 2024 : William F. Meggers Award, Optica.