Nobel laureate in Physics has been battling since the 1980s – 10/03/2023 – Science

Brazilian physicist Anderson Gomes, from UFPE (Federal University of Pernambuco), was not very surprised to learn that his former colleague, Frenchwoman Anne L’Huillier, had been awarded the Nobel Prize in her field in 2023.

“When I look back, it is clear that she already knew very well where she wanted to go — not in the sense of being a Nobel laureate, because that is very difficult to plan, but in the determination to deeply dominate that area”, says Gomes, who worked with Anne and published some studies in partnership with her between the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. It was precisely the period in which the researcher was beginning to master the technique that would end up earning her the award this year.

Gomes and L’Huillier lived together at the Paris-Saclay Nuclear Research Center, an institution where the researcher worked before transferring to Lund University, in Sweden, where she remains today.

“She had already completed her doctorate. She was a theoretical physicist, but she wanted to learn as much laboratory techniques as possible. As I worked with lasers and spent all my time in the laboratory, we met there frequently”, says the physicist.

He says that L’Huillier even helped him get around bureaucracy to continue working. “The research center’s rules established certain times for entering and leaving, and no one worked on holidays. One of these holidays was going to fall on a Friday, but she talked to the director so he could make an exception, allowing us to work during the weekend in experiments.”

According to the physicist, who is also a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, national laboratories also have the potential to make measurements of the behavior of particles on the scale of attoseconds (quintillionths of a second), a feat that became possible thanks to the work of the Frenchwoman and the other winners the Nobel Prize in the field this year.

“Looking at Brazil, why don’t we have similar awards? It’s not a lack of competence or knowledge”, he ponders. “What makes a difference is planning and continuity. She has continued to struggle with this non-stop since the 1980s. It is not something that you can make flourish in one, two, three years. This constancy, with investment in people, needs to be maintained regardless of changes in government.”