The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier “for their experimental methods that generate attosecond light pulses to study the dynamics of electrons in matter”, it was announced on Tuesday in Stockholm, Sweden.
“Through their experiments, this year’s laureates created flashes of light short enough to capture snapshots of the extremely fast movements of electrons,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
Frenchman Pierre Agostini, Hungarian Ferenc Krausz and Frenchwoman Anne L’Huillier have shown that there is a way to create “extremely short light pulses that can be used to measure the rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy.”
“The contributions of the laureates allowed processes to be investigated so quickly that they were previously impossible to follow”the note highlights, referring to Pierre Agostini, from the Ohio State University, in the US, Ferenc Krausz, from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, in Germany, and Anne L’Huillier, from the Lund University, Sweden.
According to the jury, the experiments of these three physicists “gave humanity new tools to explore the world of electrons in atoms and molecules.”
According to the Swedish Academy “The laureates’ experiments produced light pulses so short that they are measured in attoseconds, demonstrating that these pulses can be used to obtain images of processes in atoms and molecules.”
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2023 #Nobel Prize in Physics to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier ‘for experimental methods generating attosecond light pulses for the study of electron dynamics in matter.’ pic.twitter.com/6sPjl1FFzv– The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 3, 2023
“Now we can open the door to the world of electrons. Attosecond physics gives us the opportunity to understand the mechanisms controlled by electrons. The next step will be to use them,” emphasizes Eva Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physical Sciences. .
As the Swedish Academy states: “There are potential applications in many different areas”. “In electronics, for example, it is important to understand and control how electrons behave in a certain material,” he explains.
“Attosecond pulses can also be used to identify different molecules, such as in medical diagnostics,” the academy emphasizes.
Anne L’Huillier is the fifth woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics
The three physicists have managed to create pulses of light on the order of ‘attoseconds’, and “an ‘attosecond’ is so short that there are as many in one second as there have been seconds since the birth of the universe,” says the Royal Swedish Academy.
Anne L’Huillier, a lecturer at Lund University in Sweden, is the fifth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics since 1901.
The scientist, quoted by AFP, said she received the jury’s call while she was giving a lecture.
“I’m very excited, not many women have won the award so it’s very, very special,” she said.
In 2022, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to researchers Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger for their research in the field of quantum mechanics.
On Monday, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to the pair of scientists who contributed to the development of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against Covid-19, the Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó and the American immunologist Drew Weissman.
The winners of the Chemistry (Wednesday), Literature (Thursday) and Peace (Friday) prizes will be announced during the week. The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences is scheduled for the 9th.
The Nobel Prizes have a monetary value of 11 million Swedish crowns (approximately 950 thousand euros). The money comes from an inheritance from the prize’s creator, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.
Laureates are invited to receive their prizes at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The Peace Prize will be awarded in Oslo, fulfilling Alfred Nobel’s wish, while the presentation of the other prizes will take place in Stockholm.
With Lusa
News updated at 12:49
Source: DN
