Date: May 27th
Hour: 5.30 p.m.
Venue: Congress Centre, Instituto Superior Técnico, Alameda Campus
«Prof. Anne L’Huillier (University of Lund, Sweden), one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2023, will deliver an IST Distinguished Lecture titled “The route to attosecond pulses”, organised by the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion and the Department of Physics at Instituto Superior Técnico.
Abstract:
When an intense laser interacts with a gas of atoms, high-order harmonics are generated. In the time domain, this radiation forms a train of extremely short light pulses, of the order of 100 attoseconds. Attosecond pulses allow the study of the dynamics of electrons in atoms and molecules, using pump-probe techniques. This presentation will highlight some of the key steps of the field of attosecond science.
Anne L’Huillier’s research, which is both experimental and theoretical, is centred on the generation of high-order harmonics in gases and their applications. In the time domain, these harmonics correspond to a series of extremely short light pulses, in the extreme ultraviolet spectral range and with a duration of a few tens or hundreds of attoseconds. Her research concerns the development and optimisation of attosecond sources and the use of this radiation for the study of ultrafast (electron) dynamics.
Attosecond light sources can be designed for different goals, e.g. towards high intensity for non-linear pump/probe experiments or toward high repetition rate for applications in condensed matter physics. Another active research area for Anne L’Huillier and her group is the study of the electron dynamics of atomic systems, following a photoionisation event induced by the absorption of an attosecond light pulse.
In 2023 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, together with Ferenc Krausz and Pierre Agostini, for the development of experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter. Throughout her prestigious career she received many other awards and distinctions, being a leading figure in contemporary physics.
