The Nobel prize in Physics for 2023 relates to three experiments, each of which provides humanity with new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules. This could help to advance medical diagnostics.
The three winners are: Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier. The three scientists have demonstrated a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to measure the rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy. The key is with capturing the wave-formation movement of electrons.
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences the Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 is:
“For experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”.
Fast-moving events flow into each other when perceived by humans, just like a film that consists of still images is perceived as continual movement. If scientists wish to investigate really brief events, they require 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 in one second as there have been seconds since the birth of the universe.
The laureates’ experiments have produced pulses of light so short that they are measured in attoseconds, thus demonstrating that these pulses can be used to provide images of processes inside atoms and molecules.
In 1987, Anne L’Huillier, Lund University, discovered that many different overtones of light arose when she transmitted infrared laser light through a noble gas. Each overtone is a light wave with a given number of cycles for each cycle in the laser light. They are caused by the laser light interacting with atoms in the gas; it gives some electrons extra energy that is then emitted as light. Anne L’Huillier has continued to explore this phenomenon, laying the ground for subsequent breakthroughs.
In 2001, Pierre Agostini, The Ohio State University, succeeded in producing and investigating a series of consecutive light pulses, in which each pulse lasted just 250 attoseconds.
At the same time, Ferenc Krausz (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) was working with another type of experiment, one that made it possible to isolate a single light pulse that lasted 650 attoseconds.
Together the researchers have enabled the investigation of processes that are so rapid they were previously impossible to follow. This opens the door to the world of electrons and advances the field of ‘attosecond physics’, providing an opportunity to understand mechanisms that are governed by electrons.
The potential applications include electronics, for understanding and controlling how electrons behave in a material. Attosecond pulses can also be used to identify different molecules, such as in medical diagnostics.
