Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for showing how to create ultra-short pulses of light that can be used to measure the movements of electrons.
Pierre Agostini of Ohio State University, Ferenc Krausz of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany and Anne L’Huillier of Lund University in Sweden share the SKr11mn ($1mn) prize for creating laser pulses measured in attoseconds — billions of a billionth of a second, the shortest timescale ever achieved by scientists.
The trio’s decades-long research “gives us the opportunity to understand mechanisms that are governed by electrons”, said Eva Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.