László Veisz has worked with this year's Nobel Prize winner in physics

This year's Nobel Prize in Physics goes to researchers who developed the ability to study electrons using flash lighting. László Veisz at the Department of Physics, who has worked with two of the three laureates, knows exactly what it is all about.

“The investigation of fast processes in time by taking pictures or even filming them was always the most direct way to understand their background. To realize such an investigation, light pulses that are shorter than the process itself, are needed to illuminate the object and ‘freeze’ its motion in time. This year Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded for the development of the shortest pulses of light up to now, that are suitable for studying electron motion in matter,” he says.

Worked together in Germany

László Veisz got to know Ferenc Krausz as a postdoc in his research group at the Technical University of Vienna. They continued their research together at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, from 2004 to 2016. László Veisz then moved on to Umeå University.

I was sure this time would come

Like the Nobel laureates, László Veisz works in attosecond physics. His research concentrates on the development and application of next generation attosecond sources.

“We have a running cooperation with Anne L’Huiller, who developed a model about the generation of attosecond pulses and we have relevant experimental data to support it. I look forward to see how well our data fits her model.”

When the Nobel Prize in Physics was announced on Tuesday, László Veisz got really excited and proud of his colleagues.

“I was sure this time would come, but it surprised me that it was already this year. I immediately wrote to both to warmly congratulate them,” he says.

Opens new doors

László Veisz describes the importance of the work of the Nobel Laureates:

“The primary achievement is the 100 times shorter pulses than available before, which opens the door to the world of electrons. You can directly observe the temporal behavior, which is sometimes complex or unexpected, and under specific conditions control it. One bright example is the ‘temporal delays in photoionization’. Since Einstein described the photoelectric effect (for which he obtained the Nobel Prize in 1921), when a photon ionizes a material and an electron is emitted, it was assumed that the electron is emitted instantaneously after the photon is absorbed. Only with the help of attosecond physics it was possible to show that it is not the case and there is a tiny delay in this process,” he says.