The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics

Every year at the beginning of October, the Nobel Prizes are announced. Following the will of Alfred Nobel, the committee honors outstanding achievements in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology, literature, and peace. Laureates receive a total of 11 million Swedish crowns per prize, instant worldwide fame, and unimaginable recognition for their scientific achievements.

For me as a theoretical physicist, it is always exciting to see what the Nobel Committee considers to be the most important achievement. Sometimes the scientific background is hard to grasp (I’m looking at you, 2016 laureates Thouless, Haldane, and Kosterlitz, who were awarded “for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”), and then I dread the moment when someone asks me to please explain what it is all about.

Well, this year I am lucky, because attosecond light pulses were part of my PhD thesis, and this is an area of physics I actually know something about. In the following, I will summarize the scientific achievements, the biographies and contributions of the laureates, and the applications of attosecond light pulses in areas beyond fundamental physics.

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