The French Optical Society’s 2026 Léon Brillouin Grand Prize has been awarded to Benoît Boulanger

Awards / Honors Research
May 29, 2026
The French Optical Society has jointly awarded the 2026 Léon Brillouin Grand Prize to Benoît Boulanger, a professor at the University of Grenoble Alpes who conducts his research at the Néel Institute (CNRS), and Guy Millot of the Carnot Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Burgundy, for their outstanding contributions to nonlinear optics.
Benoît Boulanger is being honored for his major theoretical and experimental contributions to nonlinear crystal optics, ranging from material growth, symmetry modeling, and innovative methods for measuring angular distributions to nonlinear optical devices, transforming fundamental concepts into practical solutions. Conducted primarily at the Institut Néel, a CNRS research laboratory affiliated with UGA, his work has had a profound impact on the field due to its originality, international influence, and technological implications.

Honoring the Memory and Carrying On the Work of Léon Brillouin

The Léon Brillouin Grand Prize was established to honor the memory of the great physicist Léon Brillouin (1889–1969), whose various works profoundly influenced the development of optics. This Grand Prize is intended to recognize, for their body of work, an optician who has conducted a significant portion of their research in France.

It is awarded every two years based on the jury’s recommendation. The prize carries a cash award of €20,000, made possible by a donation from the iXCore-Exail Research Foundation. This Léon Brillouin Grand Prize was established by Emmanuel ROSENCHER, to whom we pay tribute for his enlightened leadership as president of the French Optical Society. 

About Benoît Boulanger

Benoît Boulanger earned his Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Nancy I in 1989, after which he joined the Nancy Crystallography Laboratory as a researcher with the CNRS (1989–1993), the Ginzton Laboratory at Stanford University as a visiting researcher (1993–1994), and the Physics Laboratory at the University of Burgundy as a CNRS researcher (1994–2000). Since 2000, he has been a professor at the University of Grenoble Alpes, where he first joined the Physical Spectrometry Laboratory (2000–2006), which he also directed from 2004 to 2006. In 2007, he joined the Néel Institute (CNRS), where he served as director of the Condensed Matter, Materials, and Functions Department until 2010.

In 2000, Benoît Boulanger founded the CNRS national network “Crystals for Optical Devices” (CMDO), which he led until 2005. He also served as president of the French Optical Society (SFO) from 2016 to 2017.

His work lies at the intersection of nonlinear crystal optics, materials engineering, and quantum optics. 
Published on May 29, 2026
Updated on July 20, 2026