Anne L'Huillier
active c. 1958, Paris, France
French-Swedish physicist who discovered the structure of high-order harmonics — the effect paving the way to attosecond pulses.
In 1987 at Saclay, L'Huillier shone infrared laser on argon and saw emission as a 'staircase' of high harmonics — near-equal intensity across many orders, unlike any normal nonlinear optics. She theorized the 'three-step' mechanism (ionization–acceleration–recollision) and later at Lund used harmonics to emit attosecond pulses for electron spectroscopy.
Nobel-winning work
L'Huillier's high-harmonic discovery (1987) — emission driven to the hundredth multiple of laser frequency — is the 'light source' behind every attosecond pulse used today. Her three-step model explains how each laser half-cycle throws an ionized electron back to the core, emitting extreme-ultraviolet photons — an attosecond 'flash' every half-cycle of light.
Workplaces: Lund University
France, Sweden