Ignacio Cirac
Ignacio Cirac Sasturain, born October 11, 1965, in Manresa, Spain, is a leading physicist known for his work in quantum computing and quantum information theory. He studied at the Complutense University of Madrid, graduating in 1988, then did a postdoc with Peter Zoller at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder, Colorado.
Cirac has held prominent positions around the world. He taught at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (1991–1996), was a professor in Innsbruck, Austria (1996), and since 2001 he has directed the Theory Division at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany. He is also an honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich and a distinguished visiting professor at ICFO in Barcelona.
His research spans quantum optics, quantum information theory, and quantum many-body physics. He and Zoller helped lay the foundations for experimental quantum computing with ion traps, and his work on optical lattices sparked the field of quantum simulation. Cirac has published hundreds of papers and is one of the most cited researchers in his field, with major awards recognizing his contributions.
Among his honors are the Wolf Prize in Physics (2013) with Peter Zoller, the Prince of Asturias Award (2006), the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2008), and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics (2010). He received the Max Planck Medal (2018) and the La Vanguardia Innovation Award (2023). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2003) and a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2017).
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:34 (CET).