Ultrashort structured laser pulses for ultrafast science, by Laura Rego
Alternative Theory Seminar at the Material Science Institute of Madrid (ICMM-CSIC) by Laura Rego, from IMDEA Nanoscience.
In this talk, Rego explains that ultrashort laser pulses open the route towards the investigation of ultrafast dynamics in matter, as they can capture ultrafast electronic movements. In particular, attosecond laser pulses are the shortest pulses to date. Such pulses carry extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) or x-ray frequencies and they are routinely generated via the process of high-order harmonic generation (HHG) or in x-ray free-electron laser facilities. In this context, structured laser pulses, where the properties of the laser’s electromagnetic field are tailored, usually to vary spatially, offer a wide range of possibilities. During this seminar, she showed some examples of how structured laser pulses can be used to control different properties of the attosecond XUV pulses generated through HHG (such as their polarization, their spatial profile or even their spectral content). In addition, she showed that ultrashort structured laser pulses can also serve as a tool to investigate properties of matter, such as ultrafast molecular chirality, when used to drive nonlinear interactions.
