The Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Stockholm, on October 3, 2023, announced the names of the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics. Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier have been selected for their research into attosecond pulses of light. They will share a prize of 11 million Swedish kroner (US$1 million).
Pierre Agostini is a French Physicist and is an Emeritus Professor at the Ohio State University, Columbus, USA. Ferenc Krausz is a Hungarian-Austrian scientist. He is a director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and a professor of experimental physics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.
Anne L'Huillier is a French physicist and a professor of Atomic physics at Lund University, Sweden.
Attosecond is one-quintillionth of a second or one-billionth of a nanosecond. Attosecond physics allows scientists to look at the very smallest particles in the very shortest time period. These three scientists developed experiments to be able to produce these ultrafast laser pulses. These laser pulses can be used to probe our world at the smallest scales. It has a wide ranging application across chemistry, biology and physics.
The fourth woman physicist was Andrea Ghez of America in 2020.
The Nobel Prize was founded in memory of Alfred Nobel, who, in his will, asked to set up a foundation to give prizes to those persons or institutions who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to "humankind". The Nobel Foundation was set up in 1900, and the first prize was given in 1901.