The New World of Gamma-Ray Optics
ERC Research Group Attosecond Dynamics
Homepage Contact The ERC Research Group 'Attosecond Dynamics' investigates the processes in atoms and molecules on the shortest currently achievable time scale, the attosecond time scale. One attosecond corresponds to 10-18 seconds, a period that is to a second what a second is to the age of the universe.
Scientists are making steady progress, thanks to new insights into ever smaller microscopic units of matter and the resolution of ever shorter chemical, physical and atomic processes. Interest in these ultrafast processes is the driving force behind the development of light sources and measuring techniques that enable studies in real time on ever shorter timescales.
Pump/probe experiments have been shown to give particularly direct access to real-time investigations of ultrafast microscopic processes. Here a short pump pulse activates a process and a probe pulse takes snapshots of the subsequent states. Access to atomic and molecular ‘inner-shell’ processes directly in real time has so far been denied for lack of the required combination of short wavelengths and a sub-femtosecond pulse duration. A solution to this problem, the concept of light-field-supported XUV (extreme ultraviolet) photoemission, makes it possible to replace either the XUV pump pulse or the XUV probe pulse with a high-intensity laser field with few oscillation cycles. In other words, the XUV pulse is used as a pump and takes the ‘snapshot’ with the light field, or vice versa. The main requirement for this is the generation and measurement of sub-femtosecond individual pulses in XUV which are synchronised with attosecond precision with a high-intensity light field. This opens the way to real-time inner-shell spectroscopy of atoms and molecules with already existing light sources.
The aim of our group is to further develop attosecond technology, which at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics already enjoys a unique position worldwide, in the direction of research into electron motion in molecular systems. Thus for example the extremely fast electron transfer in proteins, which is often used as an ‘energy pump’ for biological systems, is a subject of great scientific interest. We hope to bring new insight into these processes that take place on an attosecond timescale and which so far could not be observed in real time. Another field of activity is the resolution of ultrafast processes in solids, which holds the promise of important advances in areas such as molecular electronics and photovoltaics.
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