The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier for creating “flashes of light that are short enough to take snapshots of electrons’ extremely rapid movements,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday.

Electrons move so quickly that their movements were previously thought impossible to follow.

But the three physicists “have demonstrated a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to measure the rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy,” the committee said.

It praised the laureates for giving “humanity new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules.”