Steven Chu (1948- )

Awarded the Prize “for development of methods to cool trap atoms with laser light.”

American physicist. Chu was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 28, 1948. In 1970 he entered the University of California at Berkeley, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1976. He joined Bell Labs in 1978 in 1983 he became Head of the Quantum Electronics Research Department. In 1987, he took up an appointment as Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University.