Contact details

Telephone   +32-2-650.29.73
Fax +32-2-650.29.33
E-mail smassar@ulb.ac.be
Room UA3-210
NO7


Serge Massar was born in Zambia in 1970 and passed most of his youth in Africa. He graduated in physics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1991 with highest honours (La Plus Grande Distinction). He then began research in theoretical physics under the direction of Prof. Robert Brout. He defended his PhD in 1995 with highest honours (La Plus Grande Distinction). From 1995 to 1997 he was a post-doctoral researcher at Tel Aviv University (Israel), and then from 1997 to 1998 at Utrecht University (Netherlands). In 1998 he came back to the Université Libre de Bruxelles as a Research Associate (Chercheur Qualifié) of the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS-FRS). In 2003 he was promoted to Senior Research Associate (Maître de Recherche), and in 2008 to Research Director of the FNRS. In 2003 he was awarded the Alcatel-Bell prize of the FNRS for his research on experimental quantum information processing. Since 2004 he directs the Laboratoire d’Information Quantique.  He has participated in several European projects in quantum information, including one (RESQ) as coordinator. He has co-authored 90 publications in leading physics journals.





Research interests

During his thesis Serge Massar mainly worked on quantum gravity and black hole evaporation (Hawking radiation).

He gradually got interested in the emerging field of quantum information, and this later became his main centre of interest. He has worked on many aspects of quantum information, including quantum measurements, quantum cloning, quantum error correction, quantum non locality, quantum computers. Recently he has contributed to the development of device independent quantum information processing.

Since 2002 he also directs an experimental group which explores how the promises of quantum information can be realised in quantum optics. In this context he has demonstrated novel quantum communication protocols, as well as studied entangled photon generation.

More recently he has got interested in understanding the origin of life, and understanding how complex dynamical systems such as neural networks can be used to process information.

 

Publications