How physics Nobel laureates helped unlock secrets of shortest time frames

The groundbreaking research into attosecond pulses opens doors to a new era of scientific exploration with applications spanning physics, chemistry, engineering and medical diagnostics

When we film fast actions – to review a batsman being run out, for example – we use fast shutter speeds to split the action, frame by frame. To film processes inside atoms and molecules, you need superfast shutter speeds.

Separate bodies of research by physicists Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier, who shared the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, helped create very short bursts of light that could spot such processes.

The frequency of a wave is the number of times it oscillates in a second (or in any given time period). Each oscillation, from peak