The 2023 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Agostini, Krausz and L'Huiller for the invention of the atomic second, the shortest signals ever created by man and which promise to pave the way for a new era of electronics

The Royal Academy of Sciences has awarded three pioneers of research into the infinitely small who developed the first instruments to explore the world of atoms and molecules.

Pierre Agostini, of French origins, works in the United States, at the Ohio State University; the Hungarian Ferenc Krausz directs the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Germany and Anne L'Huillier, also of French origins, works at the Swedish University of Lund.

The prestigious recognition, explains the Royal Academy of Sciences, comes for the "experimental methods that generate Actosecond light pulses for the study of the dynamics of electrons in matter".

The three scientists «have demonstrated a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to measure rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy», providing «new tools for humanity to explore the world of electrons at interior of atoms and molecules." «The contributions of the winners - concludes the commission - have made it possible to investigate processes so rapid that previously it was impossible to follow them».

(Unioneonline/L)