Nobel Prize 2023 For Physics Awarded To Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier
The Nobel Prize for Physics 2023 is shared by Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier for their contribution towards attosecond spectroscopy capable of monitoring rapid electron movements within an atomic or molecular system. It is a recognition of their experimental research in demonstrating a powerful tool to explore the mystery of electron world within a system. Pierre Agostini did his PhD from Aix-Marseille University, France and is a Professor at the Ohio State University, Columbus, USA. Ferenc Krausz got his PhD from Vienna University of Technology, Austria. He is the Director at Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching and is a Professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany. Anne L’Huillier, got her PhD from University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, France. She is a Professor at Lund University, Sweden.
Why attosecond spectroscopy is worth the Nobel Prize?
In our world- the human world, the time scales calibrated in seconds or fractions of seconds is accurate enough to film the events happening around us. Imagine the world of electron where the movement is as quick as a few tenths of an attosecond. Imagine one second, being further divided into 1018 parts, then one part out of these 1018 is one attosecond. Or what one second is to the age of this universe, that is one attosecond is to second. The popular science background article on this work, published by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences draws a beautiful analogy to understand this extremely short span of time, “A tiny hummingbird can beat its wings 80 times per second. We are only able to perceive this as a whirring sound and blurred movement. For the human senses, rapid movements blur together, and extremely short events are impossible to observe. A highly focused photograph of a hummingbird in flight requires an exposure time that is much shorter than a single wingbeat. The faster the event, the faster the picture needs to be taken if it is to capture the instant”.
In a molecule, atoms turn and move in femtosecond scale, which is millionths of a billionth of a second. Femtosecond spectroscopy produced the shortest light pulses for capturing these movements. But when it comes to electron movements which change faster than the atoms , trying to photograph electrons through femtosecond spectroscopy gives only blurred images of these electron movements. Years of research by Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier have finally contributed a powerful tool to the scientific community to precisely capture electron moments.
The Journey….
Anne L’Huillier’s work on overtones initiated back in 1987, formed the theoretical basis for this experimental achievement. The story continued as “Pierre Agostini and his research group in France succeeded in producing and investigating a series of consecutive light pulses, like a train with carriages. At the same time, Ferenc Krausz and his research group in Austria were working on a technique that could select a single pulse – like a carriage being uncoupled from a train and switched to another track”, as per the popular science background article, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The Future Prospects of Attosecond Spectroscopy
Besides the potential of Attosecond Spectroscopy to probe the dynamics of atoms, molecules and electrons, it is also a potential tool that can create wonders in the field of electronics. Its imaging precision can be utilized for medical diagnosis and for other applications in the field of medicine.
Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/
