H. Jeff Kimble
About Optica
In Memoriam: H. Jeff Kimble, 1949-2024
02 September 2024
H. Jeff Kimble, Optica Fellow and pioneer in quantum optics and quantum information science, passed away on 2 September 2024. He was the William L. Valentine Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Caltech, USA. Kimble's career comprised a veritable parade of foundational discoveries and observations in quantum optics. The discoveries include photon antibunching, generation of squeezed states of light, strong coupling of an atom-photon system, entanglement at a distance and quantum teleportation, a one-atom laser, and the reversible transfer of quantum states between light and a single atom.
Kimble earned his bachelor's degree from Abilene Christian University in Texas in 1971 and his PhD from the University of Rochester in New York in 1978. From 1979 to 1989, he was a professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1989, Kimble joined Caltech as a professor of physics, was appointed the William L. Valentine Professor in 1997, and became a professor emeritus in 2021.
Among all the beautiful physics in Kimble's work, the results have deep practical importance. His pioneering cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED) experiments have laid the groundwork for numerous contemporary quantum technologies. His work on squeezed states of light is foundational to unprecedented precision metrology. His breakthroughs in quantum teleportation and the entanglement of remote atomic ensembles are important ingredients for quantum networks.
Kimble was recently honored as the inaugural recipient of Optica's Leonard Mandel Quantum Optics Award for his ground-breaking work on the quantum interactions of light and matter and for establishing the core technologies based on squeezed light for quantum sensing and quantum communications. He received several other Optica awards, including The Max Born Award, the Herbert Walther Award, and the James P. Gordon Memorial Speakership.
In addition to being an Optica Fellow, Kimble was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and a Fellow of APS and a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow.
A beloved colleague and leader in the quantum optics community, much of which he trained, Optica and the scientific community mourn the loss of H. Jeff Kimble.
