Michel Devoret

Michel Devoret
Devoret in 2025
Born	Michel Henri Devoret (1953-03-05) 5 March 1953 (age 73) Paris, France
Education	Télécom Paris (Dipl.Ing.) University of Orsay (DEA, PhD)
Known for	Transmon Fluxonium Quantum limited amplification
Awards	Ampère Prize (1991) John Bell Prize (2013) Fritz London Memorial Prize (2014) Micius Quantum Prize (2021) Comstock Prize in Physics (2024) Nobel Prize in Physics (2025)
Scientific career
Fields	Condensed matter physics Quantum information Quantum measurements
Institutions	Collège de France Yale University University of California, Santa Barbara
Thesis	Mise en évidence d'un ordre orientationnel de type vitreux dans l'hydrogène et le deutérium solides[1]  (1982)
Doctoral advisor	Neil S. Sullivan
Doctoral students	Vincent Bouchiat[2]

Michel Henri Devoret^[3] (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl dəvɔʁɛ]; born 5 March 1953)^[4] is a French-American physicist.^[5][6] He is Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara,^[7][8] and Professor Emeritus of Applied Physics at Yale University.^[9] He serves as the Chief Scientist for Quantum Hardware at Google Quantum AI.^[10] He is known for the development of various superconducting quantum computing architectures, including the quantronium, the transmon, and the fluxonium.

He shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Clarke and John M. Martinis for their joint work on macroscopic quantum phenomena in superconducting circuits.^[11]

Devoret was born in Paris, France, in 1953.^[12][13] He has stated that his parents were of Jewish background, even though they were not religious.^[14]

Devoret graduated with an engineer's degree in telecommunications from École nationale supérieure des télécommunications (ENST, now known as Télécom Paris) in Paris in 1975.^[15][12] He obtained a graduate diploma (DEA) in quantum optics from the University of Orsay (present-day Paris-Saclay University), followed by a doctorate in condensed matter physics in 1982.^[12][15] He performed his doctoral research at CEA Saclay in the group of Anatole Abragam,^[16][17] under the supervision of Neil S. Sullivan.^[17]

Devoret worked as a postdoctoral researcher in John Clarke's group at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1982 to 1984.^[12] Together, with John M. Martinis, a graduate student at the time, they demonstrated for the first time the quantized energy levels of a Josephson junction in 1985.^[12][16]

Devoret then returned to France and founded the Quantronics group at the Orme des Merisiers laboratory of CEA Saclay together with Daniel Esteve [fr] and Cristian Urbina. The group measured the traversal time of tunnelling, invented an electron pump, observed the charge of Cooper pairs directly, and developed a type of qubit dubbed quantronium. They also observed the Ramsey fringes of quantronium.^[12][18][19]

In 1996, Devoret spent a research stay in the laboratory of Hans Mooij at Delft University of Technology.^[20]

Devoret became a professor at Yale University in 2002. At Yale University, Steven Girvin, Robert J. Schoelkopf, and Devoret devised a type of superconducting charge qubit called the transmon.^[21][22] In 2009, Devoret also pioneered fluxonium,^[23] which can be understood as a special type of flux qubit. In 2010, he also developed a microwave quantum limited amplifier for qubit readout and sensing.^[24][25]

He also participated in 2018 in an experiment demonstrating the interruption and reversal of quantum jumps in a superconducting artificial atom, providing new insights into the dynamics of quantum measurement.^[26]

From 2007 to 2012, Michel Devoret held the Chair of Mesoscopic Physics at the Collège de France where his inaugural lecture, "From the Atom to Quantum Machines," illustrated the connection between fundamental quantum phenomena and emerging quantum technologies.^[27][28] He resigned in 2013.^[12][18]

In 2023, he was named the Chief Scientist for Hardware at Google Quantum AI.^[10] In 2024, he moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara to serve as Professor of Physics.^[7]

In 1970, Michel Devoret received the Prix de la Couronne française, an award recognizing young French researchers.^[29]

Devoret was elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003,^[3] of the French Academy of Sciences in 2007^[30] and of the National Academy of Sciences in 2023.^[5]

Devoret and Esteve were awarded the Ampère Prize by the French Academy of Science in 1991.^[31] In 1995, Devoret received the Descartes-Huygens Prize from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science.^[32] Devoret, Esteve, Yasunobu Nakamura and Johan Mooj were awarded the Europhysics-Agilent Prize by the European Physical Society in 2004.^[33] In 2013, Devoret and Schoelkopf were awarded with the John Stewart Bell Prize for "Fundamental and pioneering experimental advances in entangling superconducting qubits and microwave photons, and their application to quantum information processing."^[34]

In 2014, Devoret shared the Fritz London Memorial Prize with Martinis and Schoelkopf.^[35] The Micius Quantum Prize was jointly awarded in 2021 to Devoret, Clarke and Nakamura.^[36] In 2016, Devoret was awarded the Olli V. Lounasmaa Memorial Prize.^[15]

The 2024 Comstock Prize in Physics was awarded to Devoret and Schoelkopf.^[37] In 2025 Devoret, Clarke and Martinis were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their joint discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.^[11]

• Knight of the Legion of Honour ( France, 2008).^[38]

• Michel Devoret on Nobelprize.org
• qulab.eng.yale.edu
• Interview with Michel Devoret — AIP Niels Bohr Library & Archives oral history