New ways of shaping ultra short laser pulses have been found
at the Vienna University of Technology: An “optical synthesizer” increases the
intensity of attosecond light flashes.
They shed light on atomic and molecular processes:
ultrashort laser pulses are required to study extremely fast quantum phenomena.
For years, scientists have been trying to tune the shape of light waves so as
to, for instance, steer an electron on exactly the right path. At the TU
Vienna, an extraordinarily powerful new method to influence the shape of the
laser light wave has been developed in cooperation with the Imperial College in
London and the Max-Born-Institute in Berlin.