Yesterday, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to the fathers of mRNA vaccines against coronavirus, Catalin Carico and Drew Weissman. Today is the turn of the Nobel Prize in Physics, which went to Pierre Agostinifrom Ohio University Ferenc Krauszfrom the Max Planck Institute and Anne L’Hullierfrom Lunga University, for “experimental methods for generating attosecond light pulses to study the dynamics of electrons in matter.”
The announcement was made around 11:45 Spanish peninsular time (and Swedish time) at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm and was announced by the Secretary General of the said institution: Hans Ellegren.
The winners will have to share the prize SEK 10 million, which is approximately equivalent to 985,700 euros. But why is all this so important?
Capture Red-handed to electrons
high speed photography It has improved significantly in recent years. It is widely used by scientists in various fields. For example, it can be used to observe in slow motion the rapid movements of some animals, from the flapping of a hummingbird’s wings to the bites of some insects.
However, there are movements in physics that cannot be captured using traditional methods. This is the case of the movement of subatomic particles such as electrons.
In fact, in a molecule, the atoms of the components can move and rotate in millionths of billionths of a second. That is, in femtoseconds. It is known that these movements can be studied using short laser pulses. However, when whole atoms move, the time scale is determined by their large and heavy nuclei, which are extremely slow compared to the much lighter and more mobile electrons.
As a result, when electrons move inside atoms or molecules, they do so so quickly that the changes are blurred within a femtosecond. Therefore, when we talk about electrons, positions and energies change at a rate of one to several hundred attosecondYes. This is a unit of measurement equal to one billionth of a second. To give us an idea, the Nobel Assembly gives a very illustrative example:
“An attosecond is so short that the number of them in a second is equal to the number of seconds that have passed since the universe began 13.8 billion years ago.”
Nobel Assembly
This cannot be detected using traditional methods. And here are the winners Nobel Prize in Physics.
Two stages that led to the Nobel Prize in Physics
The first piece of the puzzle was discovered by Anne L’Huillet when she discovered the effect that occurs when a laser beam interacts with gas atoms. Pierre Agostini and Ferenc Kraus later discovered that this effect could be used to create shorter light pulses. It has already been observed that short pulses of light can help measure very fast movements on the femtosecond scale. Therefore, if these light pulses were made much shorter, they could reach the attosecond scale. This was their hypothesis, and they actually achieved it.
Thanks to this, it was possible to observe with a magnifying glass electron movementsomething applicable in various fields from electronics to medicine. So, although this is a complex and seemingly abstract process, it actually has very tangible and useful applications for people. This is why he deserves the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Fifth Nobel Prize winner in physics
There is another reason to celebrate the Nobel Prize in Physics. And while these awards have always been heavily criticized for their low representation of women scientists, this edition is currently performing very well in this regard. Yesterday Katalin Kariko became the thirteenth Nobel Prize laureate in medicine, and today Anne L’Hullier She became the fifth woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. Is something finally changing? We’ll have to take a close look at what’s left of this, as well as future editions.
More tomorrow
This is the second of three awards in the scientific category. Third, Nobel Prize in Chemistrywill be delivered tomorrow, October 4th.
Source: Hiper Textual
