Ahmed H. Zewail

Chemistry

Ahmed Zewail won the 1999 Nobel Prize in chemistry "for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy." Zewail’s fields are physical chemistry and chemical kinetics, which include optical techniques such as femtosecond spectroscopy. He developed techniques using laser pulses with duration of a femtosecond (10-15 seconds) to probe chemical reactions. This allowed him to observe what was happening during chemical reactions.