Trio Win Nobel Physics Prize for Lighting up Secrets of the Atom

Hans Ellegren, permanent secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences, flanked by Eva Olsson and Mats Larsson, members, announces this year's Nobel Prize winners in Physics, at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 3, 2023. Reuters

STOCKHOLM—Scientists Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L'Huillier won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics for creating ultra-short pulses of light that can give a snapshot of changes within atoms, potentially leading to better detection of disease.

The prize-awarding academy said their studies had given humanity new tools for exploring the movement of electrons inside atoms and molecules, a phenomenon that was long thought impossible to trace.