The prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 was awarded to French scientists Pierre Agostini and Anne L’Huillier. The news was widely announced through several media organisations yesterday, Tuesday, September 3, 2023, on their official social media handle.

The Prestigious Nobel Prize Awardees Pierre Agostini and Anne L’Huillier shared this prize with Austrian-Hungarian physicist Ferenc Krausz for their joint work on the movement of electrons inside atoms and molecules.

Advertisement

The three Nobel Prize Awardees 2023 were recognised for their experiments to explore and research the profound and fantastic world of electrons and the molecules inside them.

The French Scientists Agostini, Krausz and Huillier have demonstrated a way to create and measure the rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy, even through extremely short pulses of light.

While sharing the Update, the French Embassy extended their pleasure and congratulated Pierre Agostini and Anne L’Huillier (who had already won the prestigious Wolf Prize in 2022, jointly with Canadians Paul Corkum and Ferenc Krausz).

As per the reports shared by the French Embassy, the French scientists received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, while Pierre Agostini and Anne L’Huillier is the 5th woman to win a Nobel Prize. She shared the prestigious award with Austro-Hungarian Ferenc Krausz.

Their work is on the movement of electrons inside atoms and molecules. Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier have worked effectively to develop and discover an efficient method to generate ultra-short light pulses, enabling the measurement of rapid electron movements and energy changes.

Reportedly, Anne L’Huillier is one of three Nobel Laureates in Physics 2023 recognised for pioneering experiments that provide new tools for exploring the electron behaviour within atoms and molecules. He was awarded the Nobel Prize at Lund University in Sweden.

Advertisement

In 1987, Anne L’Huillier and her colleagues at a French laboratory produced and demonstrated overtones using an infrared laser beam that was transmitted through a noble gas.

The infrared light caused stronger overtones than the laser with shorter wavelengths used in previous experiments. This experiment observed many overtones of about the same light intensity.

In a series of articles, L’Huillier continued to explore this effect during the 1990s, including at her new base, Lund University. Her results contributed to the theoretical understanding of this phenomenon, laying the foundation for the next experimental breakthrough.

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for studying electron dynamics in matter.”