At Yale, Nobel laureate worked eagerly with colleagues, students

Before receiving the Nobel Prize in physics, Michel Devoret, an emeritus professor of applied physics, was known for the passion he exuded while engaging with colleagues and students. 

Last week, Devoret won the Nobel Prize in physics along with two colleagues for research conducted while Devoret was a postdoctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1980s. Devoret and his colleagues, John Clarke and John M. Martinis, earned the Nobel Prize for experiments that demonstrated quantum phenomena at a scale visible to the human eye. Quantum mechanics refers to the physics theory that explains the behavior of atoms and subatomic particles.

“He didn’t like fuzzy answers,” Daniel Prober, the director of graduate studies for the Department of Applied Physics, said about Devoret in a phone interview. “He was in his office as much as any faculty member I’ve seen in my 50 years of Yale, meeting with students and researchers and learning. He was always very curious.”

Devoret served on the Yale faculty for 22 years before moving to California. He now teaches and researches at the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves as the chief scientist of quantum hardware for Google.

During his time at Yale, Devoret worked closely with Steven Girvin, a physics professor, and Robert Schoelkopf, an applied physics professor. Much of their work revolved around circuit quantum electrodynamics, which involves the application of ideas about quantum optics on a macroscopic scale by using superconducting microwave circuits, according to Girvin. Superconductors, metals that have been extremely cooled down, eliminate electric resistance in the circuit.

“Both Devoret and Schoelkopf have a nose for both fundamental questions that need experimental tests and a deep understanding of what techniques need to be developed or borrowed in order to do the right experiments,” Girvin wrote in an email to the News.

According to Schoelkopf, his work with Girvin and Devoret helped develop methods for storing and processing information in a quantum way but within superconducting circuits — the foundation of solid-state quantum computing, which is quantum computing using superconductors. Those methods, he added, are the basis for how solid-state quantum computing devices work. 

Though the technology is still in its early stages, Girvin said it has the potential to revolutionize computational and communication tasks. Schoelkopf added that their discoveries now extend beyond academia by influencing product development in the computing industry.

Throughout their partnership, Girvin appreciated discussing physics deeply with Devoret, even when they disagreed. They would collaborate, bouncing ideas off each other and discussing until they came to a conclusion, Girvin said.

“I am a theorist,” Girvin wrote. “Professor Devoret is an experimentalist who knows a lot of theory. He has a very clear sense of direction in his research knowing what directions are likely to be fruitful.”

Schoelkopf said that such back-and-forth collaboration between theorists and experimentalists helped Yale researchers shape “the paradigms of how you do quantum computing today.”

The community that grew out of the group’s research was important, Schoelkopf added. He believes the research group’s collaborative environment — involving postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and even undergraduates — synergetically helped Yale excel in the field of quantum research and computing.

Pranav Parakh ’24, who worked for Devoret’s Quantronics Laboratory and worked with Devoret for his thesis project, wrote in an email to the News that Devoret has a “unique ability to draw connections across different subfields and guide us towards ideas we hadn’t thought to explore.”

“Michel is so easy to work with and learn from that you almost forget how brilliant he is,” Parakh wrote. “He’s great at coming up with intuitive explanations for difficult topics while still being patient and very willing to take a step back and explain the basics. He is incredibly detail oriented, and his ability to know the intricacies of the projects in his (relatively large) lab was quite impressive.”

Shantanu Jha ’21, who also worked in the Quantronics Laboratory and took two classes with Devoret, described Devoret as a professor who created an environment in which he felt comfortable asking many questions.

Parakh recalled one subgroup meeting in which Devoret mentioned imaginary time evolution, a quantum mechanics method that Parakh had not yet learned in class. After the meeting, Devoret spent an hour at a chalkboard explaining the method step-by-step, Parakh wrote.

“Moments like that really captured what makes Michel such an exceptional mentor, with his combination of deep expertise, patience, and genuine enthusiasm for helping others learn,” Parakh wrote.

Jha added in an email to the News that Devoret’s “deep care” for his research was evident when passionately explaining concepts on a chalkboard. 

Both students said they were surprised upon learning about Devoret’s Nobel win — not by Devoret’s recognition, but by how soon the Nobel committee chose to honor the field of quantum computing. 

“I was honestly surprised that our field was chosen for that level of recognition, but not at all surprised that Prof. Devoret was among those honored,” Jha wrote. 

In 2024, Devoret and Schoelkopf won the National Academy of Sciences’ Comstock Prize in Physics for their work developing circuit quantum electrodynamics, or “Circuit QED.”