Nobel Prize Winners, Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz & Anne L'Huillier

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).

About the chosen Physicist 

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.

What is Attosecond? 

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.

Woman  Physicist to get Nobel Prize in Physics

• Anne L'Huillier became the fifth woman physicist to get the Nobel Prize in Physics. 
• The first woman physicist to get the Nobel Prize in physics was Madam Curie in 1903.
• The second woman physicist was Maria Goeppert Mayer of America in 1963.
• The third woman physicist was Donna Strickland of Canada in 2018.

The fourth woman physicist was Andrea Ghez of America in 2020. 

Indian Scientists to win Physics Nobel prize 

• Sir Chandrashekhara Venkata Raman (C.V. Raman) won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.
• Indian -American Subhramanayam Chandrashekhar got the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983. 

Nobel Prize 

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.

Nobel Prize in Physics 

• The first person to get the Prize was Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen of Germany in 1901. He discovered electromagnetic rays, which he named X-rays.
• John Bardeen of the United States of America is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice, in 1956 and 1972. 
• In 2022, it was awarded to Alain Aspect (France), John Clauser (American) and Anton Zeilinger (Austria).