Anne L'Huillier, Nobel Prize in Physics 2023: Official Interview

I don't know exactly, it's a very long time ago, but I was very much inspired by my grandfather on my mother's side, who was a researcher and teacher in radio. During World War II he was working with the resistance movement and he was helping them with communication. I don't remember him very much because he died when I was four, but his story has inspired me very much. He wrote many books that were at home, so it inspires me. Then there is also something that I remember very clearly, that was important for me, is to watch the people walking on the moon. This was in the middle of the night, I was ten years old, and it was very impressive, this I remember. It kind of motivated me to go towards science and technique. I enjoy doing research because you learn new things all the time, so this I like very much. I also enjoy teaching science, teaching to young people. So these both aspects, learning new things and teaching to others, that motivates me very much. Yes, several teachers have definitely influenced my scientific career. Mathematic professor at high school, and then a little bit later when I studied at university, very good teachers in physics, especially atomic physics, inspired me very much. So I think that's very important. I am thinking of Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and Serge Haroche, and both got Nobel Prize. Afterwards, they inspired me in the way of teaching, which is quite rigorous but very pedagogical, and also to do both maybe experiment and theory. So this little bit of French school inspired me in my way to be a researcher and teacher. This I don't know. I just would like them to become enthusiastic with what I am teaching them with the physics. This is maybe my motivation. Of course, they should learn, but they should also become like what they hear and become interested and enthusiastic. So this is my aim. When I received the telephone call, not very much, because at that time I was struggling between what should I do, because I had my class waiting for me after the pause, and the Nobel committee and the Nobel organization, they were asking me to stay on the phone. So I was a little bit struggling. What should I do? Then I said, no, I want to go back to my class. I agreed with them that I will finish the class 15 minutes earlier so that I could be part of the press conference. So this is what I did. But they agreed to that. I think the whole thing with students became very, very nice. It just happened like that. There is nothing we planned, obviously. This was very nice because somehow these students, and it was many students, about 100, became part of my Nobel prize, if you see what I mean. So the day afterwards, I also had a lecture. So I started lecturing as usual, but then during the pause again, they came with an enormous flower, what is that in English, flower bucket? And they say, we want you to give, you have gotten many flowers, but we hope this is the largest. And it actually was. So it was so nice from them. It was very, very touching. So for me, the student response to that is going to stay in my memory forever. Yes, it is. And absolutely. And it's remarkable that all the three physics laureates, we have all moved. For me, it's from France to Sweden, and my colleague, Pierre Agostini, from France to the United States, Veracruz, Hungary, Austria, Germany. So this really shows that science is international and open, and I think this is extremely important. I think it influenced my life very much. I cannot really say what is the difference compared to if I had stayed, but to move country in general is making your life kind of richer. For me, it was a difficult decision on the professional point of view when I moved, but in the end, it became so good in looking at the facet. It was a very good decision, even on the professional point of view, to move. I would encourage the young people not to be afraid to do that. When you fail, it's about being obstinate and to continue. So this is the quality that you need to have if you want to do research, to be obstinate and to never give up. That's essential. I mean, I'm just trying to tell them that the normal thing is failure, it's not success, it's failure, and I'm trying to show them example, and I guess this is how it is. But at the same time, I'm trying to motivate them and to say, okay, but maybe this did not completely fail. You have this result that still is coming through. So there is nothing black and white. So even if it's not exactly what you want, but maybe this is also interesting. So that's what I'm trying to do. First of all, the way we do research in my group, it's never one student on a project. It's always a group of students. So the basic idea is that the senior PhD student is teaching the junior PhD students. So that everyone does not feel inadequate. For example, the first year you are a PhD student, I'm telling the student, I don't have any expectation from you, just learn. Learn, try to learn how it works. I don't expect any result, just learn how things work. So I'm trying to reduce the pressure on all of the students so that they feel that they learn and they come up to speed and try to make them feel good. This is a difficult question. I'm going to answer a little bit differently. What I'm trying to get from my students is actually a motivation from them. I think that successful scientists, whether it's in academia or industry, should have the motivation by himself or herself. So this is what I'm trying to get from the students, that they are motivated for what they are doing. And this needs a little bit of time and care. So I'm never pressing my students, for example, to work more. It should come from themselves. So that's the idea. I think, again, you need to be motivated and to be a little bit passionate. I think that's important. I think you need to be obstinate. It's also very important. Not to give up because something fails or because you don't know where it's going. And then I think, for me, science is not only working with machines and gas or lasers. It's working with people. So to build up a good research group and to have a good relation with your colleagues and the students. This is also very important. Finally, I believe that in communication, teaching, this teaching and research goes hand in hand. So I think it's important that the researcher can teach what they are doing, and this communication with students is important. This is the thing I like to use, and that's the word intuition. To be a scientist is about following my intuition. I think, for me, to follow my intuition has been something I have done my whole life without having a real reason, a scientific reason. Maybe from when I was a child, why did I do science? Well, maybe I was motivated, but I followed my intuition. So this is something that... And this is maybe a little bit with this obstination. Yes, why I was obstinate to do that. I followed my intuition. Why did I continue to look at harmonic generation, although my boss at the time was telling me, oh, you should do something else. This is not leading anywhere. It's not that I had a vision that, oh, it will lead to attosecond pulses, or this is very interesting. No, because I was not finished with doing research, and I was following my intuition. Yes. So this is something I would like to tell the young people. Yeah, follow your intuition in life. I like both. Depends a little bit. I like research very much, but I like teaching very much. I couldn't do only one. Moving from France to Sweden also meant that I changed from a research institute with no teaching to a university with teaching, and this was a discovery. It was really, wow, oh, so fun it is to teach. I think it's about communication, to communicate your enthusiasm to students, and it could be also to other researchers. So probably this is something I like to do very much. Then research, of course, requires other skills, which is to go to the depths of something, to be able to analyze new experiments in the right way, to have ideas, maybe when you see something a bit new, different, to realize that this might be important. So research, of course, requires different skills. I think it's very important. First of all, I would like to stress that very often new ideas don't come. Of course, you can have your own ideas that pop up, but very often it's within a group discussion. So you have people discussing, and then someone says something, and another one gets an idea and says something. A third person is kind of putting two things together. So often, and I have seen that many times, it's a group discussion, and the more diverse this group is, the better. So this is, I'm coming to diversity here. I think here it's nice if you have people with different backgrounds that contribute to this process, and with different educations and different backgrounds. Then, when you do research, to have a good atmosphere in the group is extremely important. And I think this is always better if you have a diverse group, with people coming from different countries, different genders. So this really helps to have a more dynamical group, where people are happy to be in that group and to contribute and to do great research. So there, I think diversity is important. First, I work quite a lot, I can say that. What I'm doing in my free time is, I am doing some tennis. I'm trying to get active. Then this is now, but a few years ago, I was at the family, my sons at home, so to have a family and taking care of the family was a big free time activity. I think to be a good teacher and scientist, you need to have a good, balanced life. I don't really believe in scientists just working all the time or sitting in their attic and just working. I think this is an image you find in books. I think it's good to have a balanced life, with a family, with a little bit of free time activities. Yes, absolutely. This is what I've been trying to describe. You need to have a good social atmosphere in the research group and good discussions, where people dare to express what they think, even if it's maybe stupid, but they express what they say and no one is telling them, no, no, this is wrong. So you need to have this freedom in the research group. And this is where creativity can come. This is a good question. For me, creativity is associated to interest and passion. So if what we are doing, we have new results that we need to understand and it seems really interesting and fun to understand these results, this is where creativity is coming. For me, as long as I feel that what I'm doing is fascinating, interesting, I think I will still have a little bit of creativity to do research. And I think this is the case for everyone. So it's not like you are creative. It's like, oh, this is very interesting, fascinating. I want to understand. This is where creativity is coming. That's my interpretation.