Nobel Prize in Physics

• This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three physicists — Pierre Agostini at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ferenc Krausz at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and Anne L’Huillier at Lund University, Sweden — for their research into attosecond pulses of light.
• The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The winners will share a prize of 11 million Swedish kroner (US$1 million).

NEED

• Since electrons move inside atoms and molecules at very high speeds, that they are measured in attoseconds (10^-18 seconds).
• Scientists were not able to observe the individual movements of an electron.

DISCOVERY

• Attosecond physics allows scientists to look at the very smallest particles at the very shortest timescales.
• An object that moves too fast to be photographed produces the image of a band of light when its picture is taken.
• The winners developed methods that produce these ultrafast laser pulses or extremely fast strobe light to illuminate the object can make it look like it has been frozen in time.

APPPLICATIONS–

• Studying Short-Lived Processes with implications for fields such as materials science, electronics, and catalysis.
• Medical Diagnostics
• Advancing Electronics– It may lead to the development of faster electronic devices, pushing the boundaries of computing and telecommunications technology.
• Enhanced Imaging and Spectroscopy