Immanuel Bloch, Coordinator of PASQuanS2, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and Chair of Experimental Physics and Quantum Optics at LMU Munich, has been awarded the 2026 Wolf Prize in Physics. He shares the prize with Jun Ye of JILA, NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder. The Wolf Foundation announced the laureates on 1 October 2026.

The citation honours both physicists "for transformative, widely applicable advances in the control of ultracold atomic systems."

Bloch established ultracold atoms in optical lattices as a highly controllable platform for exploring the quantum phases of strongly interacting matter. He observed the transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator, pioneered quantum gas microscopy, and helped define the paradigm of quantum simulation. Ye, for his part, led the development of the world's most accurate and stable optical atomic clocks, pushing the measurement of time and frequency to extraordinary precision and opening new routes for testing fundamental physics.

That science sits at the heart of what PASQuanS2 is building: programmable quantum simulators with atoms and ions, scaled up and brought towards real applications by 27 partners across Europe.

Established in 1978, the Wolf Prize is one of the leading international awards in science and the arts, and many of its laureates have gone on to receive Nobel Prizes.

The whole consortium congratulates Immanuel Bloch on this recognition.