By Cnr Ifn
Attosecond pulse (AP) generation marks a paramount achievement in ultrafast technology and is at the core of Attosecond Science. APs are obtained by temporally confining the HHG emission within an ultrashort temporal window, at a sub-optical cycle of the driving laser field, through optical gating schemes. In time-resolved experiments, APs are synchronized with another ultrashort optical pulse in a pump-probe scheme, for exciting and probing electron dynamics with a temporal resolution ultimately defined by the duration of the attosecond burst. In our laboratories, APs are routinely generated and applied to the investigation of electron processes of fundamental interest for a wide number of fields. Specifically, the research is oriented toward the understanding and control of chemical properties, photo-induced reactions, and charge transfer processes in molecules and biologically relevant systems. Moreover, we exploit the attosecond pump-probe approach to explore fundamental physical mechanisms at the basis of charge carrier motion in materials appealing for the development of ultrafast optoelectronics and spintronic devices.
