Pierre Jacquinot (18 January 1910 – 22 September 2002) was a French physicist.

Jacquinot was a PhD student of Aimé Cotton. He was director of Laboratoire Aimé-Cotton during almost 20 years (1951–1962 and 1969–1978). From 1962 to 1969 he was appointed director general of CNRS.

In the mid-1940s, Jacquinot noticed that a Michelson interferometer could be modified by removing the need of a slit to achieve a higher resolution. This result became known as Jacquinot's advantage, published by Jacquinot in 1954. In Laboratoire Aimé–Cotton, he advised the work of Pierre[fr] and Janine Connes who developed the Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy between 1954 and 1966.

In 1966 he entered the French Academy of Sciences. He became its president from 1980 to 1982.

Awards