Ferenc Krausz, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and Professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Pierre Agostini from Ohio State University (USA) and Anne L'Huillier from Lund University (Sweden).
The Nobel Committee honors the two scientists and the scientist for establishing attosecond physics. An attosecond is one billionth of a billionth of a second. Laser pulses lasting just a few attoseconds can be used to track the movements of individual electrons. To this end, techniques have been developed to generate intense, perfectly controlled light pulses. If these light pulses are then fired at noble gas atoms, the strong electromagnetic fields of the flashes can "knock" electrons out of the electron shells of the atoms. If these are recaptured, the atoms emit flashes lasting a few hundred attoseconds. The shortest light pulses can now reach less than 100 attoseconds.
Ferenc Krausz's aim is to develop new laser techniques to track the movement of electrons in atoms, molecules and solids in real time and thus directly observe quantum mechanical processes. The work not only provides fundamental insights into the behavior of electrons in atoms, molecules and solids, but could also contribute to the development of faster electronic components, among other things.
