Attoscience

Dejan Milošević

Abstract


 Lasers, as sources of strong electromagnetic field, have enabled the investigation of nonlinear light-matter interaction. Thirty years ago ultrafast lasers have reached a fundamental limit – the duration of the laser pulses in visible and near infrared range was limited to few optical cycles and was measured in femtoseconds (1 fs = 10-15 s). The route to generate and measure even shorter attosecond (1 as = 10-18 s) pulses is based on extreme nonlinear optics and on the technology of laser carrier-envelope phase stabilization. In the 21st century researchers have broken the femtosecond barrier and new area of science – attoscience – has emerged. We discuss these revolutionary attosecond tools and their application to myriad problems in science.

Keywords: physics, attoscience, atomic and molecular physics, optics, lasers


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