Anne L’Huillier
Facts
© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Clément Morin
Anne L’Huillier
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2023
Born: 16 August 1958, Paris, France
Affiliation at the time of the award: Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Prize motivation: “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”
Prize share: 1/3
Work
Electronic motions initiate processes that create and maintain life, and are behind the exchange of energy between light and matter. These are arguably the most important motions for human life, evolving in hundreds of attoseconds. Attosecond pulses allow us to capture them inside atoms, molecules and solids. In 1987, Anne L’Huillier discovered that many different overtones of light arose when she transmitted infrared laser light through a noble gas. She continued to explore this phenomenon, laying the ground for subsequent breakthroughs in producing attosecond pulses.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
