Charles H. Bennett

BB84 quantum key distribution (1984), Quantum teleportation (1993), Entanglement distillation (1996), Thermodynamics of computation

A physicist who joined IBM Research in 1973 and still works there. With Gilles Brassard he invented BB84, the first practical quantum cryptography protocol, whose security rests on the laws of physics rather than on hard maths problems. He is IBM's seventh Turing Award recipient.