The Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday that the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausch and Anna L’Juliet.

The prize was awarded “for experimental methods that generate attosecond light pulses to study the dynamics of electrons in matter.”

“The three winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics are being recognized for their experiments that have given humanity new tools to explore the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules. Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausch and Anna L’Juliet have demonstrated a way to create extremely short light pulses that can be used to measure fast processes in which electrons move or change energy,” the Swedish Academy of Sciences reported.

Fast-moving events flow into one another when people perceive them, just as a film composed of still images is perceived as continuous motion. If we want to study very short events, we need special technology.

In the world of electrons, changes occur in a few tenths of an attosecond – an attosecond is so short that there are as many seconds in one second as there have been since the birth of the universe.

The laureates’ experiments created pulses of light so short that they are measured in attoseconds, thus demonstrating that these pulses can be used to obtain images of processes inside atoms and molecules.

In 1987 Anne L’Juliet discovered that when he passed infrared laser light through a noble gas, several different tones of light appeared. Each of them is a light wave with a certain number of cycles for each cycle of laser light.

This is caused by laser light interacting with atoms in the gas; this gives some electrons extra energy, which is then emitted as light. Anne L’Juliet continued to explore this phenomenon, laying the groundwork for further discoveries.

In 2001 Pierre Agostini was able to generate and analyze a series of consecutive light pulses, each lasting only 250 attoseconds.

At the same time, Ferenc Krausch worked with another type of experiment, which made it possible to isolate a single light pulse with a duration of 650 attoseconds.

The contribution of the laureates made it possible to investigate processes so quickly that it was impossible to track them until now.

“Now we can open the door to the world of electrons. Attosecond physics allows us to understand the mechanisms that govern electrons. The next step will be to use them,” said Eva Olsson, head of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

There are potential applications in many different areas. In electronics, for example, it is important to understand and control how electrons behave in a material. Attosecond pulses can also be used to identify different molecules, for example in medical diagnostics, the Swedish Academy of Sciences also stated.

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The Nobel Prize in Physics in numbers

Since 1901, 116 Nobel Prizes in Physics have been awarded. The prize was not awarded six times: in 1916, 1931, 1934, 1940, 1941 and 1942.

Why weren’t medical prizes awarded in those years? The statutes of the Nobel Foundation state: “If none of the considered works turns out to be important, specified in the first paragraph, the prize money will be reserved until the following year. If the prize cannot be awarded again, the amount will be added to the restricted funds of the foundation. Fewer Nobel Prizes were awarded during the First and Second World Wars.

Nobel Prizes in Physics, joint and undivided:

• 47 prizes in physics were awarded to one laureate.
• 32 prizes in physics were shared by two laureates.
• 37 prizes in physics were divided between three laureates.

Why is this happening? The statute of the Nobel Foundation states: “The amount of the prize may be divided equally between two works, each of which is considered worthy of the prize. If the work to be awarded is performed by two or three persons, the prize shall be awarded jointly to them.” The amount of the prize may in no case be divided between more than three persons.”

John Bardeen received the award twice

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to 222 laureates between 1901 and 2022. Given that it was awarded twice, since 1901 the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to 221 people.

John Bardeen is the only person to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics twice, in 1956 and 1972. Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize twice, once for physics in 1903 and once for chemistry in 1911.

To date, the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics is Lawrence Bragg, who was 25 years old when he shared the Nobel Prize with his father in 1915.

The oldest Nobel laureate in physics to date is Arthur Ashkin, who was 96 years old when he won the Nobel Prize in 2018.

Of the 221 people awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, four are women:

• 1903 – Marie Curie (also awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911).
• 1963 – Maria Heppert-Mayer
• 2018 – Donna Strickland
• 2020 – Andrea Guez

Families of the laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physics:

Marie Curie and Pierre Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. Marie Curie was awarded a second Nobel Prize in 1911, this time for Chemistry. (One of Marie and Pierre Curie’s daughters, Irene Joliot-Curie, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 with her husband Frédéric Joliot.)

Father and son: (All won the Nobel Prize in Physics.)

• William Bragg and Lawrence Bragg, 1915
• Niels Bohr, 1922 and Age N. Bohr, 1975
• Mann Zigban, 1924 and Kai M. Zigban, 1981
• JJ Thomson, 1906, and George Paget Thomson, 1937