There is good reason to celebrate: physicist Ferenc Krausz, who has carried out groundbreaking research at the Vienna University of Technology, is being honoured with the Nobel prize for his innovative experimental methods for generating attosecond light pulses.
He was able to generate extremely short flashes of light that made it possible for the first time to visualise the ultrafast movements of electrons and understand their mechanisms.
He shares the award with the French physicists Anne L'Huillier and Pierre Agostini.
In addition to the possibilities for basic research, the research field of attosecond physics offers, for example, numerous application possibilities for smaller and more powerful electronics and for medical screening procedures for the early detection of diseases. Krausz, currently director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, continues to pursue this vision with enthusiasm.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to the Austrian quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger, who, together with French physicist Alain Aspect and his US colleague John Clauser, was awarded for groundbreaking experiments with entangled quantum states.
