Ohio State emeritus professor wins Nobel Prize in physics for study of electron movements

Sheridan Hendrix, Columbus Dispatch
Updated ·2 min read
A screen shows this year's laureates (from left to right) US-based physicist Pierre Agostini, Hungarian-Austrian physicist and French physicist Anne L'Huillier during the announcement of the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics at Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on Tuesday.
A screen shows this year's laureates (from left to right) US-based physicist Pierre Agostini, Hungarian-Austrian physicist and French physicist Anne L'Huillier during the announcement of the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics at Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on Tuesday.
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An Ohio State University emeritus professor is among this year's Nobel Prize winners.

Pierre Agostini won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his study of electron dynamics in matter. He shares the award with Hungarian-Austrian physicist Ferenc Krausz from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and French physicist Anne L’Huillier from Lund University in Sweden.

Their winning work explored how electrons move inside molecules and atoms. Electrons move at speeds of 43 miles per second, making them nearly impossible to study.

Agostini, Krausz and L'Huillier discovered a new experimental technique to capture an electron’s movement at a single moment in time using ultra-short pulses of light, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which named the awardees in Stockholm Tuesday.

Those pulses of light last an attosecond, measuring at one quintillionth of a second. The Nobel Committee for Physics said at a news conference that the laureates' work “have given humanity new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules.” Their findings have potential applications in electronics and medicine.

“The Nobel Prize is the pinnacle of scientific achievement,” said Ohio State Acting President Peter Mohler. “All of us at Ohio State celebrate this recognition of Pierre’s lifetime of research and scholarship.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine shared in the congratulations of Agostini and his colleagues.

“Ohio is the heart of innovation and research with talented scientists making internationally recognized discoveries, building on our proud legacy of inventions that have changed the world," DeWine said.

Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. Sign up for Extra Credit, her education newsletter, here.

shendrix@dispatch.com

@sheridan120

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Electron movements research wins Ohio State professor a Nobel Prize