French Physicist Jacqueline Bloch Wins 2026 CNRS Gold Medal for Polariton Research
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In brief
Jacqueline Bloch, a physicist at the Centre of Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies near Paris, has been awarded France's top scientific honor, the CNRS Gold Medal, announced on 15 September 2026. The award recognises her work on polaritons, hybrid light-matter particles studied for possible use in future quantum and optical computing technologies.
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) announced on 15 September 2026 that its Gold Medal, the institution's highest distinction, goes to physicist Jacqueline Bloch for her research on polaritons, according to the CNRS and the French Academy of Sciences.
Who is Jacqueline Bloch
Bloch, 59, is a research director at the Centre of Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies (C2N), a joint laboratory of the CNRS and Université Paris-Saclay in Palaiseau, south of Paris, according to CNRS.
Bloch studied at the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles (ESPCI) and completed a PhD thesis on electron behaviour in nanostructures in 1994, at what was then the Laboratory of Microstructures and Microelectronics (renamed C2N in 2016), according to CNRS. She was recruited by CNRS the same year and has worked within the CNRS system since then, CNRS said. She is a member of the French Academy of Sciences' physics section, the Academy said.
What are polaritons, and why does the research matter
Polaritons are described by CNRS as hybrid quantum particles that are half light and half matter. They form inside microcavities—semiconductor structures a few micrometres thick sandwiched between mirrors—where photons (particles of light) and excitons (bound electron-hole pairs in a material) continuously exchange energy, producing combined properties that neither photons nor excitons have on their own.
According to CNRS, Bloch's team has used polaritons to simulate other physical systems in the laboratory. In 1997 she published work showing how microcavities could be shaped into micron-scale pillars to control photon states. In 2010 her group manipulated polariton condensates using differently shaped cavities, and in 2014 the team assembled a honeycomb-patterned structure in which polaritons mimicked properties of graphene, the carbon material known for its electrical conductivity.
In 2015, Bloch's team used polariton fluids to reproduce conditions resembling a black hole's event horizon, CNRS reported. In 2022 the group showed that fluctuations inside a polariton condensate follow the same statistical laws that govern frost formation on glass or the spread of fire across paper; in 2025 they extended that finding to two-dimensional systems, according to CNRS and the Academy of Sciences.
The Academy of Sciences said Bloch's discoveries have opened new ways to study quantum phenomena, including the behaviour of electrons in certain materials, the flow of light-based fluids, and phenomena inspired by black-hole physics.
What I like most of all is basic research! There is still so much to discover.
— Jacqueline Bloch, cited by CNRS
CNRS noted that Bloch's own research priority remains fundamental discovery, and that any technological application—such as using light-based particles for information processing—would follow from, rather than drive, that basic science.
About the CNRS Gold Medal
The CNRS Gold Medal was created in 1954 and is awarded once a year to a single researcher or teacher-researcher working at a French public scientific institution, honouring the entirety of that person's scientific output, according to the French-language Wikipedia page on the medal, which lists CNRS as its source. Several past laureates went on to receive Nobel Prizes, among them Louis de Broglie, Alfred Kastler, Louis Néel and Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, all in physics.
Recent CNRS Gold Medal laureates
Year
Laureate
Field
2024
Edith Heard
Biology
2025
Stéphane Mallat
Mathematics
2026
Jacqueline Bloch
Physics
What is not yet known
CNRS and the Academy of Sciences have not published a date for a formal award ceremony beyond the 15 September 2026 announcement. Neither source specifies a timeline for any practical or commercial application of polariton-based technology.
Questions
What did Jacqueline Bloch win the CNRS Gold Medal for?
She was recognised for her pioneering research on polaritons, hybrid particles formed by the strong coupling of light and matter inside semiconductor microcavities, according to CNRS and the French Academy of Sciences.
What is the CNRS Gold Medal?
It is the highest scientific distinction awarded by France's National Centre for Scientific Research, created in 1954 and given to one researcher per year for their overall body of work, per the CNRS-sourced Wikipedia entry on the medal.
What is a polariton?
CNRS describes a polariton as a quantum particle that is half light and half matter, created when photons and excitons exchange energy repeatedly inside a microcavity.
Where does Jacqueline Bloch work?
She is a research director at the Centre of Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies (C2N), run jointly by CNRS and Université Paris-Saclay in Palaiseau, France, according to CNRS.
Could this research lead to quantum computers?
CNRS reports that Bloch's work opens potential avenues for light-based information processing, but describes this as a possible future application rather than a current product, with her research focus remaining on fundamental physics.
How the world is telling it
FrenchFrench-language sources frame the award as recognition within the French national research system, emphasising Bloch's full career at CNRS/C2N and situating the Gold Medal among past French laureates who later won Nobel Prizes.
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