The 2022 Wolf Prize in Physics was awarded to Paul Corkum, Anne L’Huillier and Ferenc Krausz “for pioneering contributions to ultrafast laser science and attosecond physics.” Professors L’Huillier and Krausz are ERC grantees. The names of this year’s laureates were announced in Jerusalem on 8 February 2022.
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. Among many other accolades, 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 - as well as commercial - opportunities in this field. She is based at Lund University in Sweden.
Ferenc Krausz is a Hungarian-Austrian physicist 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 2010 to carry out a 5-year research project on “4D imaging of fundamental processes on the atomic and sub-atomic scale.” Professor Krausz works at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
About the Wolf Prize
The international Wolf Prizes are awarded to outstanding scientists and artists from around the world, for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations amongst peoples. The scientific categories of the prize include Medicine, Agriculture, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics. The prize in each field consists of a certificate and a monetary award of 100,000 US dollars.
Wolf Prize by ERC grantees
Giorgio Parisi received the Wolf Prize 2021 in Physics for his ground-breaking discoveries in disordered systems, particle physics, and statistical physics. In 2010, Professors Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger won the prize for Physics, while Prof. David Baulcombe received the Agriculture prize. In 2013, Prof. Peter Zoller won the prize for Physics and, in 2014, Leif Andersson was distinguished with the Agriculture prize. The 2019 Mathematics prize went to Prof. Jean-Francois Le Gall and in 2020, Prof. Caroline Dean won the prize for Agriculture while Prof. Simon Donaldson received the Mathematics prize. Several other ERC grantees were awarded the Wolf prize before they were funded by the ERC.
