This year, the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three scientists who look at electrons in atoms during the tiniest of split seconds – following experiments with light that capture "the shortest of moments".
Three scientists – Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier – have won the 2023 Nobel Prize physics for “experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”.
The award has been announced in the Swedish capital Stockholm.
The award-giving body stated that “The laureates’ experiments have produced pulses of light so short that they are measured in attoseconds, thus demonstrating that these pulses can be used to provide images of processes inside atoms and molecules”.
The prize in medicine went to mRNA researchers Hungarian-born US citizens Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman – for their technology that paved the way for messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines.
The awards for chemistry, literature and peace are scheduled to be awarded on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively – in Stockholm.
Moreover, the award for economics will be announced on October 9.
Nobel prizes were founded through the 1895 will of Swedish inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel.
Winners receive a Nobel Prize diploma, a gold medal, and a cheque, and the amount this year is about $1m.
All laureates collect these prizes in an official ceremony on December 10 – the anniversary of Alfred’s death.
Here are the Nobel Prize in Physics laureates from 2010 to 2020:
2020 - Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez
2019 - James Peebles, Michel Mayor, and Didier Queloz
2018 - Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou, and Donna Strickland
2017 - Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish, and Kip Thorne
2016 - David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane, and J. Michael Kosterlitz
2015 - Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald
2014 - Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura
2013 - François Englert and Peter Higgs
2012 - Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland
2011 - Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, and Adam G. Riess
2010 - Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov