A team at the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics has designed
and built a simplified detector for the measurement of the waveforms of pulsed
laser radiation.
A team in the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics (LAP) at the
Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics has taken another step toward the
achievement of complete control over the waveform of pulsed laser light.
Together with colleagues based at LMU and the Technische Universität München
(TUM), they have constructed a detector which provides a detailed picture of
the waveforms of laser pulses that last for a few femtoseconds (1 fs = 10-15
seconds). Unlike conventional gas-phase detectors, this one is made of glass,
and measures the flow of electric current between two electrodes that is
generated when the electromagnetic field associated with the laser pulse
impinges on the glass.