The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics speaks Italian a little bit

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to researchers Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier for their work in developing experimental techniques for the creation of atomic-second laser pulses of light.

Marco Bellini, Research Director at the National Institute of Optics of the National Research Council of Florence (Cnr-Ino), is actually listed with some of the experiments that resulted in today’s findings in the scientific background of the Award. Experiments were carried out on the Arcetri Hill (Florence) in 1998 when Bellini himself revealed for the first time the involvement of the various electron paths involved in the process of generating harmonics at the European Laboratory of Non-linear Spectroscopies (Lens).

“This and other experiments, carried out in collaboration with Theodor Hänsch (Nobel Prize for Physics in 2005 for the invention of optical frequency combs) and with Anne L’Huillier’s group, laid the foundations for the controlled construction of trains of Attosecond Pulses and for the birth of Attophysics, the science that studies such extreme phenomena”, explains Bellini. “The field of research opened by this new window of observation of the world is now booming and promises applications ranging from physics to chemistry, to materials science, up to the development of new diagnostic techniques based on the detection of biological molecules”.

Website of the research group of Bellini
https://quantumlight.ino.cnr.it

Related publications

• “Temporal coherence of ultrashort high-order harmonic pulses” M. Bellini, C. Lyngå, A. Tozzi, M. B. Gaarde, T. W. Hänsch, A. L’Huillier and C. G. Wahlström; Physical Review Letters, 81, 297-300 (1998)  
• “Phase-locked high-order harmonic sources” R. Zerne, C. Altucci, M. Bellini, M. B. Gaarde, T. W. Hänsch, A. L’Huillier, C. Lyngå and C. G. Wahlström; Physical Review Letters, 79 (6), 1006-1009 (1997)   
• “Temporal coherence of high-order harmonics” C. Lyngå, M. B. Gaarde, C. Delfin, M. Bellini, T. W. Hänsch, A. L’Huillier, and C.-G. Wahlström; Physical Review A, 60, 4823 (1999)  
• “Extreme ultraviolet interferometry measurements with high-order harmonics” D. Descamps, C. Lyngå, J. Norin, A. L’Huillier, C.-G. Wahlström, J.-F. Hergott, H. Merdji, P. Salières, M. Bellini, and T. W. Hänsch; Optics Letters, 25,135-137 (2000)