EU-funded researchers win 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics

Anne L'Huillier and Ferenc Krausz, two researchers who have received substantial financing from the EU, have been named the winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics. Together with Pierre Agostini, they are awarded the prize for their experimental methods that produce attosecond light pulses for the study of electron dynamics in matter. Both Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier have received funding from the European Research Council (ERC), through several Advanced Grants worth nearly € 9,5 million, as well as for their participation in 14 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) projects and other projects funded by earlier Research and Innovation programmes  - Horizon 2020, the 5th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP5), and the 6th and the 7th Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation.

Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: 

“Congratulations to this year’s laureates of the Nobel Prize in physics! I am really proud that the European Research Council has substantially funded these outstanding scientists in their revolutionary research. They have also been supported via numerous other EU research and innovation programmes, in particular Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. This showcases the importance of funding eminent researchers and giving them the resources they need to succeed in their scientific endeavours to the benefit of humankind.”

Anne L’Huillier is a Swedish-French physicist and professor of atomic physics at Lund University, working on the interaction between short and intense laser pulses and atoms. She won ERC Advanced Grants in 2008, 2013 and 2019, as well as ERC Proof of Concept grants in 2013 and 2017. Professor L’Huillier’s research advanced the understanding of the dynamics of electrons within atomic systems. In parallel, her discoveries in the field of ultrafast laser technology have opened up further scientific and commercial opportunities in this field.

Ferenc Krausz is a Hungarian-Austrian physicist working at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and whose research team was the first to generate and measure attosecond light pulses and used them to capture electron motion inside atoms. He was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant in 2009 to carry out a 5-year research project on “4D imaging of fundamental processes on the atomic and sub-atomic scale”.

The two also won the Wolf Prize in Physics together.