Yale physicist A. Douglas Stone has won the 2025 Max Born Award for his groundbreaking work in optics research, which includes more than 150 published research articles and multiple patents for optical devices.
The award, presented by Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America), honors outstanding contributions to physical optics, either theoretical or experimental. It is regarded as one of the most prestigious awards for optics research.
The award specifically recognized Stone’s “pioneering concepts of coherent perfect absorption and reflectionless scattering modes, comprising a general theory of reflectionless scattering in optics, and for seminal contributions to laser theory of complex microcavities.”
Stone, a theoretical physicist, is the Carl A. Morse Professor of Applied Physics in the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science and professor of physics in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is also deputy director of the Yale Quantum Institute.
Past recipients of the award include Nobel laureates Roy J. Glauber, Alain Aspect, John L. Hall, and Anne L’Huillier.
“Receiving the Max Born Award is a great honor and a significant recognition of the impact that my group’s research has had in the field of modern photonics and optical physics,” Stone said. “To be included on the illustrious list of previous winners, including leading innovators from previous generations and my most admired contemporaries is a dream come true.”
Stone is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society. His many honors include the Willis Lamb Medal in Laser Science, the Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, an IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, the William L. McMillan Award, and a Presidential Young Investigator Award.
In addition to his research, Stone has been a strong advocate for science communication and outreach. His book, “Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian,” was selected by National Public Radio’s “Science Friday” program as the science book of the year in 2013.
The award is named for Max Born, a German physicist and mathematician who conducted fundamental research in quantum mechanics in the 20th century. Recognized for his statistical interpretation of wave function, he also made important contributions to the fields of solid-state physics and optics.
