Nobel Prize 2023: Attosecond pulses

[DrClaude]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.”

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/summary/

 

[Haborix]

Can anyone familiar with this field/technique give us an idea of how important this is?

 

[pinball1970]

Can anyone familiar with this field/technique give us an idea of how important this is?

The presentation provided a few potential applications.

from 29.57

 

[pinball1970]

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/summary/

They rang Anne L’Huillier to tell her she had won but she was lecturing so they had to try a few times.

When they did get her, they told her but it was only a short call as she wanted to finished her lecture!

I wonder if she told her class?

Amazing.

 

[DrClaude]

Can anyone familiar with this field/technique give us an idea of how important this is?

Important enough to be worth a Nobel prize

To be able to probe things that move very fast, like electrons in molecules, one needs very short bursts of light to interrogate systems. These tools have now been available for about a decade and have been used to study electron dynamics in atoms, molecules and non-structures.

 

[DrClaude]

For those that have access:
Ferenc Krausz and Misha Ivanov, Attosecond Physics, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 163 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.81.163

 

[Haborix]

Important enough to be worth a Nobel prize

To be able to probe things that move very fast, like electrons in molecules, one needs very short bursts of light to interrogate systems. These tools have now been available for about a decade and have been used to study electron dynamics in atoms, molecules and non-structures.

Yes, the trouble I have is my own personal interests means some years seem obviously important/cool and others just don’t trigger the same response. This year is the latter, but like you say, it is important enough to get a Nobel Prize, so I’m trying to figure out what I’m missing. Had the same response to the blue LEDs a few years ago.

 

[DrClaude]

I wonder if she told her class?

I don't think you are allowed to say anything until the prize has been officially announced.

 

[hutchphd]

Can anyone familiar with this field/technique give us an idea of how important this is?

I think it is a just a (very short) flash in the pan.