Photonics Shines Bright at Nobel Prize this Year

The first week of October is always a highlight in science, the week when the Nobel prizes are announced, one per day in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and peace. Photonics did very well this year, first the Physics Prize was awarded to attosecond (one quintillionth of a second, or 10^-18 of seconds) laser physics and then the next day quantum dot lasers were the focus of the Chemistry Prize.

Professor Anne L’Huillier (Lund University) will receive her Nobel medal on December 10, together with Ferenz Krausz and Pierre Agostini sharing the Physics prize. Their research focuses on how to generate the shortest possible laser pulses in order to explore the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules, such as how electrons move around a nucleus and change energy. Anne is a former colleague of Professor Stefan Andersson-Engels (Tyndall and Physics, UCC), where they worked together at the Atomic Physics Division in Lund and the Lund Laser Centre for about 20 years.

The prize in Chemistry goes to Alexey Ekimov, Moungi Bawendi and Louis E. Brus for researching nanostructures in semiconductors leading to the development of quantum dots. These nanostructures have opened new opportunities in light-emitting diodes and semiconductor lasers, which are now integrated parts of our daily lives in the form of internet, TV screens, sensors, remote controls, etc.

These prizes just illustrate that photonics is a key enabling technology in the 21st century, like electronics was in the past century with the development of integrated circuits. Tyndall is today world leading in researching photonics integrated circuits and home to the SFI research centre for photonics, IPIC. The demand for talented people is enormous, and Tyndall offers training both in terms of undergraduate summer internships, and PhD students. Tyndall is also very active in popular science events to engage the general public in high-tech photonics and related topics within the sector of information and communication technologies.