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Attosecond science is the study of processes that occur on a time scale of a few attoseconds (10-18 seconds) or less. Examples include the ionization and recollision of an electron from its parent atom or molecule. The speed of these phenomena means that they can only be investigated using optical techniques employing ultrafast lasers.
The authors demonstrate, using coincident Coulomb explosion imaging, that the rotational dynamics of single nitrogen molecules can be used as a probe to sense the interactions with surrounding Ar atoms in gas-phase clusters.
Time-resolved photoelectron circular dichroism with a temporal resolution of 2.9 fs is used to track the ultrafast electron dynamics following ultraviolet excitation of neutral chiral molecules, which generate chiral currents that exhibit periodic rotation direction reversal.
Terawatt-scale, sub-femtosecond, soft X-ray pulses have been demonstrated at the Linac Coherent Light Source using a superradiant cascaded amplification approach.
Researchers have demonstrated the generation and control of subfemtosecond pulse pairs from a two-colour X-ray free-electron laser and conducted pump–probe experiments in core-ionized molecules.
Attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy (ATAS) is a powerful scheme for monitoring the vibronic coherences that enables real-time observation of electronic motion, but the role of molecular rotation is usually neglected. The authors propose a theory fully accounting for molecular rotation in ATAS, closing the gap between theory and ATAS experiments.
Sub-cycle confinement and control of phase transitions in strongly correlated materials are theoretically demonstrated, potentially providing a way to investigate electron dynamics on timescales previously unattainable with these materials.
The interaction of atoms with intense squeezed light is affected by the quantum noise of the driving field whereby the quantum noise of the squeezed driving field is imprinted in the emitted high harmonics.
Attosecond charge migration in a neutral molecule has been observed to decohere within approximately 10 fs. However, this does not mean that the electronic coherence is irreversibly lost, as the charge migration is observed to revive after 40–50 fs. These findings have the potential to enable laser control of photochemical processes.
A sub-cycle modulation in reflectivity is observed in bulk crystals subjected to intense laser fields. The effect provides a new way to probe attosecond dynamics in materials.
Tunnelling currents inside plasmonic nanostructures are fast enough to gain direct access to the oscillating electric field of near-infrared and visible light, opening up exciting routes towards attosecond metrology of light–matter interaction and unique approaches to spectroscopy.