Illustration of the French physicist Anne LHuillier (born 1958). LHuillier is a pioneer of attochemistry. She laid the groundwork for the discipline when studying high harmonic generation (HHG) in gases. HHG uses a laser to excite ionised nobel gas atoms so that they emit radiation at various multiples (harmonics) of the frequency of the laser. In the 1990s LHuillier and her colleagues explained HHG using quantum mechanics, and showed that it could be used to generate ultrashort pulses of light with durations of only attoseconds (one billionth of a billionth of a second). In 2003 her group generated a pulse lasting only 170 attoseconds, beating the world record for the shortest laser pulse. Such short pulses allow the behaviour of electrons in atoms and molecules to be studied. LHuillier was awarded a share of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Ferenc Krausz and Pierre Agostini, for her work.