Article Title: Physics Nobel Prize 2023
04-10-2023
Current Events Current Affairs Analysis
Topic: Atto Second Pulses of Light
“for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter” (Atto Second - 1×10⁻¹⁸ of a second)
Laureates:
1Pierre Agostini – France
2Ferenc Krausz – Hungarian-Austrian
3Anne L’Huillier- French –Swedish
5th Women physics Nobel Laureate
For finding laser light’s interaction with atoms in a gas
4Krausz, Agostini – Forcreating shorter pulses of light using the findings of L’Huillier
Atto Second - 1×10⁻¹⁸ of a second- one billionth of a billionth of a second
An attosecond is to one second as one second is to the age of the universe
Atto second pulses are used to see or observe electrons.
Electrons’ movements in atoms and molecules are so rapid that they are measured in attoseconds.
Applications :
Electronics
Medical diagnostics
Material Sciences
Nobel Prizes given by: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The world of electrons is explored with the shortest of light pulses
Flashes of light that are short enough to take snapshots of electrons’ extremely rapid movements
Observing the electrons movements in an Atom:
Atoms’ natural time scale is incredibly short.
In a molecule, atoms can move and turn in millionths of a billionth of a second, femtoseconds.
These movements can be studied with the very shortest pulses that can be produced with a laser
In the world of electrons, positions and energies change at speeds of between one and a few hundred attoseconds.
Attosecond pulses make it possible to measure the time it takes for an electron to be tugged away from an atom.
Reconstruct how the distribution of electrons oscillates from side to side or place to place in molecules and materials
Previously the position/location of an electron in an atom/moleculecould only be measured as an average.
An attosecond is so short that that the number of them in one second is the same as the number of seconds that have elapsed since the universe came into existence, 13.8 billion years ago.
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