Pierre Agostini facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Pierre Agostini
|
|
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg)
Agostini in 2023
|
|
| Born | 23 July 1941 Tunis, French Tunisia
|
| Alma mater | Aix-Marseille University (BEd, MAS, PhD) |
| Known for | Above-threshold ionization RABBITT |
| Awards | Gay-Lussac–Humboldt Prize (2003) William F. Meggers Award (2007) Nobel Prize in Physics (2023) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Attosecond physics |
| Institutions | CEA Saclay Ohio State University |
| Thesis | Appareillage permettant la réalisation de filtres multidiélectriques UV: Étude des couches Sb2O3 cryolithe (1967) |
Pierre Agostini is a French experimental physicist. He was born on July 23, 1941. He is known for his important work with strong lasers and very short light pulses. These pulses are called attosecond pulses.
An attosecond is an incredibly short amount of time. It's one quintillionth of a second! That's 0.000000000000000001 seconds. Agostini's research helps us understand how electrons move inside atoms and molecules. This movement happens super fast.
In 2023, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He shared the prize with Anne L'Huillier and Ferenc Krausz. They were honored for creating and using these super-fast light pulses.
Contents
Early Life and Studies
Pierre Agostini was born in Tunis, which was then part of French Tunisia, in 1941. He finished high school in France in 1959.
He then studied physics at Aix-Marseille University. He earned his first degree in physics in 1961. He continued his studies and received his doctoral degree in 1968. His early research focused on special filters for ultraviolet light.
Research and Discoveries
After finishing his studies, Agostini started working as a researcher. This was in 1969 at CEA Saclay in France. He stayed there for over 30 years.
While at CEA Saclay, Agostini worked with powerful lasers. He studied how atoms react when hit by these strong lasers. In 1979, he and his team made an important discovery. They were the first to see something called "above-threshold ionization." This happens when an atom absorbs more energy from light than it needs to release an electron.
Creating Attosecond Pulses
In 2001, Agostini and his team made another big breakthrough. They worked with scientists from the Netherlands. They used a very advanced laser to create a series of light pulses. Each pulse lasted only 250 attoseconds.
To measure these incredibly short pulses, they developed a special method. It's called RABBITT. This stands for "reconstruction of attosecond beating by interference of two-photon transitions." By mixing the super-short ultraviolet pulses with the original infrared light, they created an interference pattern. This pattern helped them figure out how long the pulses were and how often they repeated.
Working in the United States
From 2002 to 2004, Agostini was a visiting scientist. He worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. In 2005, he became a physics professor at the Ohio State University (OSU). He ran a lab there with another scientist, Louis F. DiMauro. Agostini became a professor emeritus at OSU in 2018. This means he retired but still holds an honorary title.
Awards and Recognitions
Pierre Agostini has received many awards for his scientific work. In 1995, he received the Gustave Ribaud prize. He also won the Gay-Lussac–Humboldt Prize in 2003.
In 2007, he received the William F. Meggers Award in Spectroscopy. This award is given for important contributions to the study of light and matter. He was also named a Fellow of the Optical Society of America in 2008. This was for his leadership in experiments that helped us understand how atoms and molecules react to strong laser light.
The biggest honor came in 2023. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. This was for his experimental methods. These methods create attosecond light pulses. They help scientists study how electrons move inside matter.
