Professor Anne L’Huillier from Lund University in Sweden is being honored for her pioneering work in the field of high harmonic generation. This has laid the foundation for the generation of attosecond impulses and made crucial advances possible in the field of attosecond physics.
“Professor L’Huillier not only described the theory of attosecond technology, but also verified it by performing experiments,” says the jury, explaining its decision. L’Huillier's work enables the continued development and application of this technology.
Attosecond impulses can be used, for example, to observe the movement of electrons in atoms or molecules in real time. This plays a key role in understanding general physical phenomena or chemical reactions at the atomic level. Attosecond impulses can be used to build a type of video camera that allows scientists to record super time-lapse movies from within atoms and molecules.
1 attosecond (as) = 0.000,000,000,000,000,001 seconds = 10–18 seconds is a very short time: even light that travels at the unimaginable speed of 300,000 kilometers per second moves less than one millionth of a millimeter in one attosecond – not even from one end of a molecule to the other.