Changing the shape of electrons within atoms and molecules: From fundamental quantum control to data processing on ultrafast time scales
Professor Thomas Pfeifer
MPIK Heidelberg and Heidelberg University
Atoms are fundamentally well-defined quantum objects: Even at room temperature, each single atom, out of gazillions of them, is found in exactly the same internal quantum state exhibiting a fully coherent and correlated many-body electronic ground state. While apparently simple, each atom features an infinite number of internal quantum states. When light excites atoms to their higher-lying states, they leave their characteristic fingerprint in resonances at different frequencies and with various line shapes.
In our work, we explore the modification of fundamental atomic properties, in their bound states, by intense and short-pulsed laser light. We observe characteristic changes of the atomic spectral shapes and learn from their response to our intense ultrafast questions. Attosecond pulses and their broadband coherent spectra are employed as probes of such dynamics, including e.g. Rabi cycling between autoionizing states, recollision physics at extremely low intensities in circularly polarized laser fields, and speeding up molecular wavepacket revivals in hydrogen by strongly driving vibronic states in neutral hydrogen molecules.
Finally, we will consider one possible outlook for future development: Atomic-scale quantum information processing at ultrafast clock speeds, programmed by intense laser light.
MPIK Heidelberg and Heidelberg University
Atoms are fundamentally well-defined quantum objects: Even at room temperature, each single atom, out of gazillions of them, is found in exactly the same internal quantum state exhibiting a fully coherent and correlated many-body electronic ground state. While apparently simple, each atom features an infinite number of internal quantum states. When light excites atoms to their higher-lying states, they leave their characteristic fingerprint in resonances at different frequencies and with various line shapes.
In our work, we explore the modification of fundamental atomic properties, in their bound states, by intense and short-pulsed laser light. We observe characteristic changes of the atomic spectral shapes and learn from their response to our intense ultrafast questions. Attosecond pulses and their broadband coherent spectra are employed as probes of such dynamics, including e.g. Rabi cycling between autoionizing states, recollision physics at extremely low intensities in circularly polarized laser fields, and speeding up molecular wavepacket revivals in hydrogen by strongly driving vibronic states in neutral hydrogen molecules.
Finally, we will consider one possible outlook for future development: Atomic-scale quantum information processing at ultrafast clock speeds, programmed by intense laser light.
