2025 Leonard Mandel Quantum Optics Award Winner
Get Involved
- Optica on Ukraine
- Awards & Honors
- Global Inclusivity
- Early Career Professional...
- Education Outreach
- Global Policy & Affairs
- Local Section
- Virtual Engagement
- Students
-
Technical Groups
- Bio-Medical Optics
- Fabrication, Design and Instrumentation
- Information Acquisition, Processing, Display and Perception
- Optical Interaction Science
- Photonics and Opto-Electronics
- Quantum
- Sensing
- Technical Group Leadership Volunteers
- Technical Group Webinars
- Technical Group Search
- Technical Group Prizes
- Simulight Optics Challenge
- Volunteer
- Optica on Ukraine
- Awards & Honors
- Global Inclusivity
- Early Career Professionals
- Education Outreach
- Global Policy & Affairs
- Local Section
- Virtual Engagement
- Students
-
Technical Groups
- Bio-Medical Optics
- Fabrication, Design and Instrumentation
- Information Acquisition, Processing, Display and Perception
- Optical Interaction Science
- Photonics and Opto-Electronics
- Quantum
- Sensing
- Technical Group Leadership Volunteers
- Technical Group Webinars
- Technical Group Search
- Technical Group Prizes
- Simulight Optics Challenge
- Volunteer
Optica Names James Franson 2025 Leonard Mandel Quantum Optics Award Recipient
Optica is pleased to announce that James Franson, University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD, USA, has been named the recipient of the 2025 Leonard Mandel Quantum Optics Award. Franson is recognized for pioneering work on nonlocal interferometry and the use of nonclassical states of light for quantum information processing.
Franson is a professor emeritus in the physics department at UMBC. He received his BS degree in physics from Purdue University and his PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology. He was previously a member of the principal professional staff at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and a Research Professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at Johns Hopkins.
Franson is actively involved in research on the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum optics, and quantum information. His theoretical contributions include his proposal for a nonlocal interferometer that violates Bell’s inequality, the theory of nonlocal dispersion cancellation, and quantum logic operations based on the quantum Zeno effect. More recently, he and his colleagues have developed practical applications of postselection, including postselecting on the presence of zero photons.
He has also been involved in experimental work in a variety of areas. His group was the first to experimentally demonstrate quantum cryptography in free space and the first quantum logic operations using single photons as the qubits.
Franson is a Fellow of Optica and the American Physical Society.
Established in 2023, this award honors Leonard Mandel for his seminal contributions to the field of quantum optics and for advancing our understanding of the quantum aspects of light. It recognizes distinguished contributions to the foundations of statistical and quantum optics, and/or applications in advanced technologies.
About Optica
Optica, Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, is the society dedicated to promoting the generation, application, archiving and dissemination of knowledge in the field. Founded in 1916, it is the leading organization for scientists, engineers, business professionals, students and others interested in the science of light. Optica's renowned publications, meetings, online resources and in-person activities fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate scientific, technical and educational achievement.
