The 2023 physics Nobel Prize has been awarded for attosecond physics
| Photo Credit: AP

Questions:

1. Attosecond physics deals with light pulses that are emitted for a few attoseconds at a time, no more. By bouncing such pulses off of electrons, scientists practically have a camera that can ‘see’ electrons changing their properties. How much of a second is one attosecond?

2. Modern attosecond physics is partly rooted in innovations to build powerful lasers. One such innovation was recognised by the 2018 Nobel Prize for physics – awarded to Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland. Of them, Dr. Mourou and Dr. Strickland were awarded for being the first to practically implement _______ _____ _____________. Fill in the blanks.

3. The Nobel Committee awarded a similar prize, for chemistry, in 1999 to the Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail. Dr. Zewail’s contributions helped physicists and chemists study chemical reactions in extreme detail. As a result, he is called the “father of ______________”. Fill in the blank.

4. A fundamental concept used to produce attosecond pulses of light is ____-________ __________. Here, when a beam of light, like from a laser, illuminates a gas, atoms in the gas emit light whose frequency is some high multiple of the beam. Fill in the blanks.

5. In 2017, researchers in Zurich created a world record by producing the shortest pulse of light ever: its duration was just 43 attoseconds. Which gas did they use in their experiment?

Answers:

1. 10^-18 seconds

2. Chirped pulse amplification

3. Femtochemistry

4. High-harmonic generation

5. Argon