For reference:<p>> Attosecond pulses: Flashes of light that last only a few billionths of a billionth of a
second. In one attosecond, light covers a distance of 0.3 nanometers (one nanometer is
one millionth of a millimeter). This corresponds to the diameter of a water molecule.<p>> Femtosecond pulses: Flashes of light that last one millionth of a billionth of a second –
about one thousand times longer than attopulses.<p><a href="https://www.mpg.de/9298413/F002_focus_024-031.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.mpg.de/9298413/F002_focus_024-031.pdf</a>
There is some nice sweet irony here. Very marginal inside baseball. I know of one of the recipients although indirectly. I felt like their group was kept around their university physics dept because they were known to be good in that field, while generally their colleagues were generally not respected as their physics (which was derisively deemed "AMO" as if it were an epithet) was not seen as "fundamental" enough by the particle physics people who held high administrative positions in the department. Fast forward a few years, and first Gerard Morou and Donna Strickland and Authur Ashkin got the Nobel for CPA and optical trapping, and now we have a nobel for research into attosecond physics.<p>There was a nobel prize for the Higgs, but SUSY and all the other sorts of things particle physicists hinged on...well that didn't peter out, did it?
Swedish paper reported that L’Huillier was lecturing when the announcement took place, and just proceeded with the lesson as if nothing happened. Kept their cool!<p><a href="https://www.dn.se/sverige/nobelpristagaren-anne-l-huillier-fortsatte-forelasa-som-om-inget-hade-hant/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.dn.se/sverige/nobelpristagaren-anne-l-huillier-f...</a>
L’Huillier, who became the fifth woman to win the physics prize, was teaching when she received the call from the committee, having the advantage of being in the same time zone as the committee.<p>(On a side note, Bing chat already knows now that she won the prize. Color me impressed.)
I found these illustrations to be really informative<p>Experimental setup - <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/fig5_fy_en_23.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/fig5_fy_en_23.pdf</a><p>Light / gas interaction - <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/fig4_fy_en_23.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/fig4_fy_en_23.pdf</a>
I found some details about the prizewinning research here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenc_Krausz#Research" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenc_Krausz#Research</a>
The popular science background that the Nobel organization produced is a readable explanation: <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-physicsprize2023.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-physicspr...</a>
Somehow I had this brief image of some ancient, stooped and heavily wrinkled codger being interviewed by the BBC seemingly interrupted while working in the field: "Another Nobel for the study of the electron? That tiny lepton? In this day and age? They should encourage people to work on quantum gravity."<p>I actually think this work is cool so I can't explain that passing image. Sometimes our brains are weird.
So, and I'm feeling a bit stupid here, not visible light? Because the pulse must be <i>a</i> complete wave, right? It goes from not being there, to being there, to not being there. And "a few dozen attoseconds" is very much shorter than the wave period of visible light. These flashes are low end x-rays?
> Prize share: 1/3<p>(x 3)<p>Can someone elaborate on these weights ? Are there occurrences where the attribution weights are different between laureates ?
> The Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 was awarded 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"