51³Ô¹ÏÍø

Prof Jon Marangos speaks to Physics World

A technique for producing radiation pulses that endure for less than one attosecond (10-18s) has been proposed...If the technique can be realized in the lab, then it could produce X-ray flashes brief enough to capture the movement of an atom's inner electrons or perhaps even look directly at the movement of protons and neutrons during nuclear fission or fusion. Jon Marangos [Physics], an expert on laser-matter interactions at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø, believes that it should be possible to develop a suitable infrared laser and that an experiment to test the principle could be conducted using currently available equipment..."You really need to work out a way of generating isolated attosecond pulses," he says, "because then you can use them in a pump-probe experiment with no ambiguity about when the pump and the probe events occurred.