2023 Nobel Prize in Physics Recognizes Attosecond Light Science
The science of light once again garners the Nobel Prize in Physics. The 2023 physics laureates are Anne L’Huillier, Pierre Agostini, and Ferenc Krausz, whose experiments with attosecond pulses of light, “have given humanity new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said upon announcing the prize.
Attoseconds are so short that there are as many in one second as there have been seconds since the birth of the universe. The laureates’ experiments demonstrated that attosecond pulses of light can be used to provide images of processes inside atoms and molecules. These processes are so rapid they were impossible to follow, prior to the 2023 laureates’ discoveries.
In 1987, L’Huillier, a professor at Sweden’s Lund University, discovered that many different overtones of light arose when she transmitted infrared laser light through a noble gas. Each overtone is a light wave with a given number of cycles for each cycle in the laser light. They are caused by the laser light interacting with atoms in the gas, which gives some electrons extra energy that is then emitted as light. She has continued to explore this phenomenon, laying the groundwork for subsequent breakthroughs. In 2018 L'Huillier gave a plenary presentation at SPIE Photonics Europe.
In 2001, Agostini, a professor at The Ohio State University, succeeded in producing and investigating a series of consecutive light pulses, each lasting just 250 attoseconds. At the same time, Krausz—director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and professor at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany—was working with an experiment that made it possible to isolate a single light pulse that lasted 650 attoseconds.
Attosecond science holds potential applications in many areas. In electronics, for example, it is important to understand and control how electrons behave in a material. Attosecond pulses can also be used to identify different molecules, which can be useful in medical diagnostics.
Together, the work of L’Huillier, Agostini, and Krausz, “gives us the opportunity to understand mechanisms that are governed by electrons,” says Eva Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. “The next step will be utilizing them.”
SPIE congratulates the three Nobel laureates and the teams of scientists and researchers who have supported their visionary accomplishments.
SPIE has made the new laureates' SPIE publications open access
