Nobel Lecture: Sub-atomic motions

Abstract

The written version of my lecture is a personal reflection on decades of research on electron-light interactions, culminating in their control and observation in real time at the turn of the millennium. Electrons and light attracted my attention when attending the lectures of György Marx on quantum mechanics and Károly Simonyi on electrodynamics during the 1980s in Budapest. This interest was solidified by my mentor, Arnold Schmidt, and deepened by Paul Corkum, during the 1990s in Vienna. They have influenced my path most profoundly. It has been a tremendous privilege to stand on the shoulders of scientists, including many Nobel laureates, who made seminal contributions to our understanding of electrons and light, when walking the path to exploring sub-atomic motions. To eventually exploit them for addressing grand challenges. To the benefit of humankind.