Nathalie Picqué

Nathalie Picqué is a French physicist working at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in the field Frequency Combs, where she studies ultra-high resolution spectroscopy using ultrashort pulses of light combined with Fourier-transform spectroscopy to reveal the fine chemistry of samples, in particular in the mid-infrared, demonstrating resolving power in excess of 1,000,000,000,000.

Education and career
Nathalie Picqué received a master's degree in laser physics from Paris-Sorbonne University (formerly known as Pierre and Marie Curie University) and Ecole Polytechnique, in Paris, France and completed a doctoral degree  in  physics from Paris-Saclay University (formerly known as Université Paris-Sud), in Orsay, France in 1998. In 2000 she was awarded the Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship to work at the European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy in Florence, Italy. In 2001, she became a staff scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Orsay, France.

She joined Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in 2008 as a part-time visiting scientist, before relocating her laboratory in Garching while becoming the leader of the research group. She is now a scientist in the Emeritus Group Laser Spectroscopy at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in, Germany, where she works together with Nobel prize laureate Theodor W. Hänsch on dual-combs spectroscopy.

Awards and honors

 * 1999 Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellowship
 * 2007 Bronze Medal of the CNRS
 * 2008 Jean-Jerphagnon Prize (French Physical Society, French Optical Society, French Academy of Technologies)
 * 2010 Beller Lectureship Award
 * 2013 Coblentz Award
 * 2019 Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA)
 * 2021 Gentner-Kastler Prize (German Physical Society, French Physical Society)
 * 2021 Advanced Grant (European Research Council)
 * 2022 Helmholtz Prize (PTB)
 * 2022 Falling Walls Science Breakthrough in Physical Sciences
 * 2023 : Grand Prix Cécile DeWitt-Morette / École de Physique des Houches of the French Academy of Sciences.
 * 2024 : William F. Meggers Award, Optica.