Alfred Kastler - Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel

Physicist, born in Guebwiller, E France (formerly Germany). He studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, and worked at Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, and Louvain before returning to the Ecole Normale (1941–68), becoming professor there and director of the physics laboratory. He discovered and developed methods of observing Hertzian resonances in atoms, leading to the development of the maser and laser. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1966.

Alfred Kastler (May 3, 1902 – January 7, 1984) is a French (German-born) physicist, born in Guebwiller, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1966.

Kastler went to the Lycée Bartholdi in Colmar, Alsace, and then went to the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1921.

Collaborating with Jean Brossel, he researched quantum mechanics, the interaction between light and atoms, and spectroscopy.

He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1966 "for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms".

Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel

Professor Kastler spent most of his research career at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris where he started after the war with his student, Jean Brossel a small research group on spectroscopy.

Over the forty years that followed, this group has trained many of young physicists and had a significant impact on the development of the science of atomic physics in France.