Femtosecond

About: Femtosecond is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 35106 publications have been published within this topic receiving 691405 citations. The topic is also known as: 1 E-15 s & fs.

Attosecond electron pulses for 4D diffraction and microscopy.

Abstract: In this contribution, we consider the advancement of ultrafast electron diffraction and microscopy to cover the attosecond time domain. The concept is centered on the compression of femtosecond electron packets to trains of 15-attosecond pulses by the use of the ponderomotive force in synthesized gratings of optical fields. Such attosecond electron pulses are significantly shorter than those achievable with extreme UV light sources near 25 nm (≈50 eV) and have the potential for applications in the visualization of ultrafast electron dynamics, especially of atomic structures, clusters of atoms, and some materials.

Organizing multiple femtosecond filaments in air

Abstract: We show that it is possible to organize regular filamentation patterns in air by imposing either strong field gradients or phase distortions in the input-beam profile of an intense femtosecond laser pulse. A comparison between experiments and 3+1 dimensional numerical simulations confirms this concept and shows for the first time that a control of the transport of high intensities over long distances may be achieved by forcing this well ordered propagation regime. In this case, deterministic effects prevail in multiple femtosecond filamentation, and no transition to the optical turbulence regime is obtained [Mlejnek et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2938 (1999)].

Plasmonic nanofocused four-wave mixing for femtosecond near-field imaging

Abstract: Femtosecond nonlinear optical imaging with nanoscale spatial resolution would provide access to coupled degrees of freedom and ultrafast response functions on the characteristic length scales of electronic and vibrational excitations. Although near-field microscopy provides the desired spatial resolution, the design of a broadband high-contrast nanoprobe for ultrafast temporal resolution is challenging due to the inherently weak nonlinear optical signals generated in subwavelength volumes. Here, we demonstrate broadband four-wave mixing with enhanced nonlinear frequency conversion efficiency at the apex of a nanometre conical tip. Far-field light is coupled through a grating at the shaft of the tip, generating plasmons that propagate to the apex while undergoing asymptotic compression and amplification, resulting in a nonlinear conversion efficiency of up to 1 × 10(-5). We apply this nonlinear nanoprobe to image the few-femtosecond coherent dynamics of plasmonic hotspots on a nanostructured gold surface with spatial resolution of a few tens of nanometres. The approach can be generalized towards spatiotemporal imaging and control of coherent dynamics on the nanoscale, including the extension to multidimensional spectroscopy and imaging.

Amplified femtosecond pulses from an Er:fiber system: Nonlinear pulse shortening and selfreferencing detection of the carrier-envelope phase evolution.

Abstract: We present an improved design of an amplified Er:fiber laser system for the generation of intense femtosecond pulses. By properly controlling the influence of optical nonlinearities inside a stretched pulse amplifier, the spectrum is broadened to over 100 nm. The pulses are recompressed to 65 fs. A linearly polarized output of 110 mW is obtained at 67 MHz repetition rate. As a first application, we report the generation of an octave-spanning supercontinuum inside a short piece of a highly nonlinear fiber. Self-referencing detection of the carrier-envelope phase evolution with an f-to-2f interferometer is demonstrated.

Femtosecond electron diffraction: 'making the molecular movie'.

Abstract: Femtosecond electron diffraction (FED) has the potential to directly observe transition state processes. The relevant motions for this barrier-crossing event occur on the hundred femtosecond time-scale. Recent advances in the development of high-flux electron pulse sources with the required time resolution and sensitivity to capture barrier-crossing processes are described in the context of attaining atomic level details of such structural dynamics-seeing chemical events as they occur. Initial work focused on the ordered-to-disordered phase transition of Al under strong driving conditions for which melting takes on nm or molecular scale dimensions. This work has been extended to Au, which clearly shows a separation in time-scales for lattice heating and melting. It also demonstrates that superheated face-centred cubic (FCC) metals melt through thermal mechanisms involving homogeneous nucleation to propagate the disordering process. A new concept exploiting electron-electron correlation is introduced for pulse characterization and determination of t=0 to within 100fs as well as for spatial manipulation of the electron beam. Laser-based methods are shown to provide further improvements in time resolution with respect to pulse characterization, absolute t=0 determination, and the potential for electron acceleration to energies optimal for time-resolved diffraction.