Pierre Agostini (; born 23 July 1941) is a French

experimental physicist Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and o ...

and

Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

professor at the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

in the United States, known for his pioneering work in strong-field laser physics and attosecond science. He is especially known for the observation of

above-threshold ionization In atomic, molecular, and optical physics, above-threshold ionization (ATI) is a multi-photon effect where an atom is ionized with more than the energetically required number of photons. It was first observed in 1979 by Pierre Agostini and c ...

and the invention of the reconstruction of attosecond beating by interference of two-photon transitions (RABBITT) technique for characterization of

attosecond An attosecond (abbreviated as as) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to 10−18 or 1⁄1 000 000 000 000 000 000 (one quintillionth) of a second. An attosecond is to a second, as a second is to approximately 31.69 ...

light pulses. He was jointly awarded the 2023

Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...

Education and career

Pierre Agostini was born in

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

, in the

French protectorate of Tunisia The French protectorate of Tunisia (; '), officially the Regency of Tunis () and commonly referred to as simply French Tunisia, was established in 1881, during the French colonial empire era, and lasted until Tunisian independence in 1956. T ...

, in 1941. He obtained his ''

baccalauréat The ''baccalauréat'' (; ), often known in France colloquially as the ''bac'', is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the ''lycée'') by meeting certain ...

'' at the Prytanée national militaire school in 1959 in

La Flèche La Flèche () is a town and commune in the French department of Sarthe, in the Pays de la Loire region in the Loire Valley. It is the sub-prefecture of the South-Sarthe, the chief district and the chief city of a canton, and the second most p ...

, France. Agostini studied physics at

Aix-Marseille University Aix-Marseille University (AMU; ; formally incorporated as ) is a Public university, public research university located in the Provence region of southern France. It was founded in 1409 when Louis II of Anjou, List of rulers of Provence, Count of ...

, where he subsequently received a B.Ed. degree (''licence d'enseignement'') in physics in 1961, and an M.A.S. degree (''diplôme d'études approfondies'') in 1962. In 1968 he completed a

doctoral degree A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

there, on multilayer dielectric filters for the ultraviolet, titled ''Appareillage permettant la réalisation de filtres multidiélectriques UV : Étude des couches Sb₂O₃''. After his doctorate, he became a researcher at

CEA Saclay The CEA Paris-Saclay center is one of nine centers belonging to the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Following a reorganization in 2017, the center consists of multiple sites, including the CEA Saclay site (formerly a ...

in 1969 and stayed there until 2002. During this time, Agostini worked in the lab of Gérard Mainfray and Claude Manus, where he researched on multiphoton ionization using the powerful lasers there. They are the first to observe

in 1979 in

xenon Xenon is a chemical element; it has symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

gas. In 2001, Agostini and his team at CEA Saclay along with Harm Geert Muller at the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM), using an advanced laser at the , managed to create a train of pulses each 250 attoseconds in duration. By recombining the ultrashort

ultraviolet Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...

pulses with the original

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

light they created an interference effect that allowed him to characterize the length and repetition rate of the pulses. Agostini was a visiting scientist at the

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, a hamlet of the Brookhaven, New York, Town of Brookhaven. It w ...

in the U.S. state of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

between 2002 and 2004, where he worked in Louis F. DiMauro's group. He became professor of physics at the

(OSU) in 2005 and ran a laboratory jointly with Louis F. DiMauro who moved a year earlier to OSU. Agostini became Emeritus professor at OSU in 2018.

Honors and awards

Agostini received the Gustave Ribaud prize in 1995 from the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

. In 2003, he received the Gay-Lussac–Humboldt Prize and the Joop Los fellowship from the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM), he also received the William F. Meggers Award in Spectroscopy in 2007 from the

Optical Society of America Optica, founded as the Optical Society of America (later the Optical Society), is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals, organizes conferences and exhibitions, and ca ...

(OSA), and is a Humboldt Fellow. He was elected a Fellow of OSA in 2008 “for leadership in the development of innovative experiments providing major insights into the dynamics of the nonlinear response of atoms and molecules submitted to strong infrared laser pulses.” In 2023, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for "experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter" along with

Anne L'Huillier Anne Geneviève L'Huillier (; born 16 August 1958) is a French physicist. She is a professor of atomic physics at Lund University in Sweden. She leads an attosecond physics group which studies the movements of electrons in real time, which is ...

and

Ferenc Krausz Ferenc Krausz (born 17 May 1962) is a Hungaro-Austrian physicist working in Attosecond physics, attosecond science. He is a director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and a professor of experimental physics at the Ludwig Maximilian U ...

References

External links

Homepage at The Ohio State University
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Agostini, Pierre Aix-Marseille University alumni Living people Nobel laureates in Physics Ohio State University faculty 20th-century French physicists 21st-century French physicists People from Tunis French experimental physicists Fellows of Optica (society) French optical physicists 1941 births French Nobel laureates