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Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for showing how to generate ultrashort light pulses that can be used to measure the movement of electrons.
The 11 million kronor ($1 million) prize was shared by Pierre Agostini of The Ohio State University, Ferenc Krausz of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Germany, and Anne L’Huillier of Lund University in Sweden, who created the attosecond measurement of laser pulses (one billionth of a billionth). One second is the shortest time scale scientists have achieved to date.
Eva Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said the trio’s decades-long research “gives us the opportunity to understand the mechanisms of electronic control.”
This work begins to move from fundamental physics (understanding the properties of electrons) to potential applications in materials science fields such as electronics, biotechnology, and nanotechnology.
“Attosecond pulses can also be used to identify different molecules, for example in medical diagnosis,” said the Nobel Prize citation. Considering their duration, there are as many Atto seconds in one second as there have been since the beginning of the universe.
A practical use for attosecond lasers will be as imaging tools in the semiconductor industry, said L’Huillier, the fifth woman among 225 Nobel laureates in physics. After receiving news of her award while giving a lecture to Lund students, she attended a press conference in Stockholm by phone.
In 1987, L’Huillier made the first of a series of discoveries that would eventually lead to the development of attosecond physics at the University of Paris-Saclay in France, and continued her research after moving to Sweden in the 1990s. . “It’s only now that we’re seeing apps popping up,” she said. “Basic research is very important and must be funded.”
Two other laureates followed up on L’Huillier’s work, shortening the duration of laser pulses to hundreds of attoseconds, and then tens of attoseconds.
L’Huillier’s fellow Frenchman Agostini also worked at the University of Paris-Saclay before moving to the United States in 2002. Originally from Hungary, Krausz conducted research in laser physics first at the University of Vienna and then at the Max Planck Institute.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Krause’s lab is “taking the first steps towards biological applications.” Combining attosecond physics with broadband optics, researchers are developing new ways to detect changes in the molecular composition of biological fluids, including detecting disease in blood samples.
“These techniques help us see electrons inside atoms on a scale that previously moved too fast for us to see,” said Michael Moloney, executive director of the American Institute of Physics. “We didn’t have flash lights fast enough to resolve the motion.”
Mette Atatur, head of the Cavendish Physics Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, said: “The decades-long pursuit of short, intense pulses has allowed us to see how matter behaves on ever-shorter time scales. They are Our highest-resolution measuring stick for measuring how the world works.”
The physics prize is the second of six Nobel prizes this year, after Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman were awarded Monday for the discovery of an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine. won the medical award. Prizes for chemistry, literature, peace and economics will be announced next week.
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