Recognition for Swedish-French scientist in the Field of Attosecond Physics  

The winner of this year's Carl Zeiss Research Award, Professor Anne L’Huillier, is being honoured for her pioneering work in the field of high harmonic generation which has laid the foundation for the generation of atto-second impulses and enabled key advances in attosecond physics.

"Professor L’Huillier not only described the theory of attosecond technology, but also verified it experimentally”, stated the jury in announcing its decision. Her work enables further development and application of this technology.

Attosecond impulses can be used, for example, to observe the movement of electrons in atoms or molecules in real-time. This plays a key role in understanding general physical phenomena or chemical reactions at the atomic level. The promise of attosecond technology is to record ultrashort time-lapse movies from the inside of atoms and molecules.

The Carl Zeiss Research Award, which has a value of €25,000 is conferred every two years for experimental and theoretical work in the field of optics. The Award will be presented to Professor L’Huillier on Wednesday, 19 June 2013.