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(GIST OF SCIENCE REPORTER) Discovery and Synthesis of Quantum Dots Wins the 2023 Chemistry Nobel

(NOVEMBER-2023)

The 2023 Nobel Prize for Physics has gone to three Physicists. Anne L’Huillier and her team in 1987 discovered a new effect from infrared laser light’s interaction with atoms in a gas.

Pierre Agostini and Ferenc Krausz demonstrated that this effect could be used to create shorter pulses of light than were previously possible. Anne L’Huillier is only the fifth woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics since its inception.
First, a few words about the nomenclature. We are familiar with prefixes like micro (10-6) and nano (10-9).
Students of science are also familiar with still smaller units like pico (10-12) and femto (10-15). But not many are familiar with an atto which is 10-18.
An attosecond is therefore a billion billionth of a second and this year’s Nobel Prize Laureates are credited with opening up a new branch of Physics called Attosecond Physics, the science of producing very short duration of light pulses and to study fleeting phenomenon using them.