Molecular Foundry Seminar

"Attosecond Light and Science - Bright High Harmonic X-Rays at 8Å"

Distinguished Professor Margaret Murnane, JILA at University of Colorado
Tuesday, May 17th at 1:00 pm, Bldg. 67 - 3111

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Abstract:

Ever since the invention of the laser over 50 years ago and its application in nonlinear optics, scientists have been striving to extend coherent laser-like beams into the x-ray region of the spectrum. Very recently, bright beams at wavelengths < 1nm have been generated using extreme nonlinear optics, by efficiently combining over 5000 photons from a femtosecond laser source. This advance is the direct result of an ability to manipulate electrons on the fastest, attosecond, time-scales of our natural world. Several applications have already been demonstrated in the soft-x-ray region of the spectrum, including probing the timescale of the exchange interaction in magnetic materials, capturing how the electron density in a chemical bond changes shape as a molecule breaks apart, understanding heat flow in 1D and 2D nanostructures, as well as 3D nano-imaging with 20nm spatial resolution using coherent diffractive imaging.

View the Kapteyn-Murnane Group website