On the afternoon of November 3, Pierre Agostini, an 83-year-old Emeritus Professor at Ohio State University, and a 2023 Nobel Laureate in Physics, was formally appointed Honorary Professor at Nankai University.

In 2023, Pierre Agostini, along with Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier, received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work in experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter—a breakthrough in ultrafast optics achieved between the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Prof. Pierre Agostini, Prof. Chen Yulu, President of Nankai University, See Leang Chin, Emeritus Professor at Laval University and Academician Chen Jun, Vice President of Nankai University, jointly inaugurated the “Pierre Agostini International Joint Research Center for Ultrafast Optics and Applications”.

President Chen Yulu highlighted that photonic technology is a foundational and transformative technology, pivotal to future industries. He emphasized that Agostini’s leadership in ultrafast optics and the establishment of the research center would significantly advance Nankai’s high-level research and talent cultivation in optics.

Prof. Pierre Agostini has maintained extensive collaboration with Nankai scholars for years. As early as 2002, he began working with Professor Liu Weiwei, Director of Institute of Modern Optics at Nankai University, resulting in a co-authored paper in 2005.

Prof. Liu Weiwei highlighted that the new research center would further strengthen their joint efforts in global cutting-edge research in ultrafast photonics.

During the “Nankai University Overseas Scholar Lecture”, Prof. Agostini delivered a lecture titled “From Photoionization Delays to Photography of Electrons: Genesis and Applications of Attosecond Pulses”.

An attosecond, the shortest time unit measurable by humans, equals 10−18 seconds. To illustrate, light travels around the Earth 7.5 times in one second but covers only the width of a water molecule in one attosecond.

Prof. Agostini’s research on attosecond pulses has provided a crucial tool for fundamental research. Comparable to a “high-speed camera” for the microscopic world, attosecond pulses enable the observation of rapid processes, such as electron mobility and energy shifts.

Through vivid examples and detailed data, Prof. Agostini elaborated on the Reconstruction of Attosecond Beating By Interference of Two-photon Transitions (RABBITT technique) and attosecond pulses’ specific applications in frontier scientific fields.

The event concluded with a lively Q&A session, where faculty and students actively engaged with Prof. Agostini.

（Edited and translated by Nankai News Team.)