Attosecond physics, also known as attophysics, or more generally attosecond science, is a branch of physics that deals with light-matter interaction phenomena wherein attosecond (10−18 s) photon pulses are used to unravel dynamical processes in matter with unprecedented time resolution.
Attosecond science mainly employs pump–probe spectroscopic methods to investigate the physical process of interest. Due to the complexity of this field of study, it generally requires a synergistic interplay between state-of-the-art experimental setup and advanced theoretical tools to interpret the data collected from attosecond experiments.
The main interests of attosecond physics are:
Atomic physics: investigation of electron correlation effects, photo-emission delay and ionization tunneling.
Molecular physics and molecular chemistry: role of electronic motion in molecular excited states (e.g. charge-transfer processes), light-induced photo-fragmentation, and light-induced electron transfer processes.
Solid-state physics: investigation of exciton dynamics in advanced 2D materials, petahertz charge carrier motion in solids, spin dynamics in ferromagnetic materials.
One of the primary goals of attosecond science is to provide advanced insights into the quantum dynamics of electrons in atoms, molecules and solids with the long-term challenge of achieving real-time control of the electron motion in matter.
The current world record for the shortest light-pulse generated by human technology is 43 as.
In 2022, Anne L'Huillier, Paul Corkum, Ferenc Krausz are awarded with the Wolf prize in physics for their pioneering contributions to ultrafast laser science and attosecond physics.
The advent of broadband solid-state titanium-doped sapphire based (Ti:Sa) lasers (1986), chirped pulse amplification (CPA) (1988), spectral broadening of high-energy pulses (e.g.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
The school provides a broad overview of the experimental methods for investigating the dynamics of solids and molecules at the sub-nm and sub-fs scales by the use of ultrashort light and electron puls
This course introduces the basic principles of lasers to then focus on the latest developments in ultrafast radiation sources, including X-ray and gamma-ray sources, attosecond pulses generation, free
This course gives an introduction to Lasers by both considering fundamental principles and applications. Topics that are covered include the theory of lasers, laser resonators and laser dynamics.
In
Femtochemistry is the area of physical chemistry that studies chemical reactions on extremely short timescales (approximately 10−15 seconds or one femtosecond, hence the name) in order to study the very act of atoms within molecules (reactants) rearranging themselves to form new molecules (products). In a 1988 issue of the journal Science, Ahmed Hassan Zewail published an article using this term for the first time, stating "Real-time femtochemistry, that is, chemistry on the femtosecond timescale...".
In optics, an ultrashort pulse, also known as an ultrafast event, is an electromagnetic pulse whose time duration is of the order of a picosecond (10−12 second) or less. Such pulses have a broadband optical spectrum, and can be created by mode-locked oscillators. Amplification of ultrashort pulses almost always requires the technique of chirped pulse amplification, in order to avoid damage to the gain medium of the amplifier. They are characterized by a high peak intensity (or more correctly, irradiance) that usually leads to nonlinear interactions in various materials, including air.
Isolated attosecond pulses from an X-ray free-electron laser are in high demand for attosecond science, which enables the probing of electron dynamics by X-ray nonlinear spectroscopy and single-particle imaging.The aim of this thesis is to simulate attosec ...
Free-electron lasers and high-harmonic-generation table-top systems are new sources of extreme-ultraviolet to hard X-ray photons, providing ultrashort pulses that are intense, coherent and tunable. They are enabling a broad range of nonlinear optical and s ...
NATURE PORTFOLIO2023
Excitons play an essential role in the optical response of two-dimensional materials. These are bound states showing up in the band gaps of many-body systems and are conceived as quasiparticles formed by an electron and a hole. By performing real-time simu ...