Thomas W. Ebbesen is a French-Norwegian physical chemist, born in Oslo (Norway) in 1954. He is currently director of theInstitut d'études avancées at the University of Strasbourg and of the International Center for Frontier Research in Chemistry.
A graduate of Oberlin University (Oberlin College, USA) and the Pierre-et-Marie-Curie University, Thomas Ebbesen first worked at the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory (USA), where he continued the photophysical chemistry work he began during his thesis. In 1988, he joined the NEC laboratory in Japan, where his research evolved into the study of carbon nanomaterials such as C60, graphene and nanotubes. Ebbesen discovered a method for synthesizing carbon nanotubes in large quantities and studied, among other things, their mechanical and wetting properties. For his pioneering work on carbon nanotubes, he shared the 2001 Agilent Europhysics Award with S. Iijima, C. Dekker and P. McEuen.
At NEC, Ebbesen also discovered a new optical phenomenon: the extraordinary transmission of light in sub-wavelength holes, where surface plasmons play a key role in exalting transmission. The phenomenon raises fundamental questions and offers vast potential applications ranging from chemistry to optoelectronics. For this discovery, Ebbesen received several awards, including the 2005 France Telecom Prize from the French Academy of Sciences, the 2009 Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize from the European Physical Society and the 2014 Kavli Prize for Nanoscience - which he shared with Stefan W. Hell and Sir John Pendry for their pioneering work in nano-optics.
For the past decade, Thomas Ebbesen has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of strong light-matter coupling, and exploring the consequences of the changes this induces in the properties of molecules and materials.
Main awards
- NEC Scientific Research Prize, 1992
- Agilent Europhysics Prize, European Physics Society, 2001
- Randers Research Prize, 2001
- Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, 2003
- France Télécom Prize, French Academy of Sciences, 2005
- Member of the Institut Universitaire de France, 2005
- Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize, European Physics Society, 2009
- Tomassoni Prize, Rome, 2009
- Schola Physica Romana, Sapienza University, Rome, 2009
- Dr. Scient. H. C., University of Southern Denmark, 2009
- Foreign Associate Member of the Academy of Sciences, 2009
- Foreign Member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and Art, 2011
- Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, 2014
- Special Prize of the French Physical Society, 2014
- Honorary Doctorate, Oberlin College, USA, 2015
- Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, France, 2017
- ERC Advanced Grants 2017 with the MOLUSC project, 2017