• Number 310  |
• April 26, 2010

Secrets of attosecond science

Many advances in energy, green chemistry, and human health will have to start with an intimate understanding of how electrons move— knowledge that will depend on time-resolved spectroscopy and frame-by-frame movies of how molecular bonds change during chemical reactions, or the correlated behavior of electrons in complex materials like high-temperature superconductors. Catching electrons in the act means freezing time within a few quintillionths of a second, using ultrashort pulses of laser light.

How is it possible to create such unimaginably short pulses? In 2004, Stephen Leone and Daniel Neumark of DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, pioneers in the field of ultrafast lasers, founded an attosecond science program at Berkeley Lab and the University of California at Berkeley. Their groups are among a handful around the world who have succeded in making isolated subfemtosecond pulses, using the novel technique of ionization gating of high-harmonic emission. The progress demonstrated by the Leone and Neumark groups has recently led to major support from the W. M. Keck Foundation and the Department of Defense.

[Paul Preuss, 510.486.6249,
paul_preuss@lbl.gov]