Prestigious award for the generation of attosecond pulses
May 23, 2006
Professor Ferenc Krausz. Credit: Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics
Professor Ferenc Krausz, Director at Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, receives the 2006 IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award
This award recognizes truly excellent and time-tested work in any of the fields of interest of LEOS. The 2006 IEEE Quantum Electronics Award will be presented to Ferenc Krausz for outstanding contributions to the field of ultrafast science, in particular to the generation of single attosecond pulses."
Professor Ferenc Krausz is recognized as one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of attosecond physics. In 2002 (when he was still professor at the University of Technology, Vienna) he succeeded - in collaborative work with Prof. Theodor Hänsch (Director at Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) using the Nobel Prize winning Frequency Comb-Technique - in developing "phase-stabilized" lasers for generating femtosecond pulses (a femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second). This type of laser generates pulses that are identical from pulse to pulse not only in intensity and frequency but also in the position of the maxima and minima of the light oscillations. The perfectly controlled high-intensity fields of theses femtosecond pulses exert forces on electrically charged elementary particles (electrons or protons) that are comparable to intra-atomic forces.
This is the precondition for advancing into the attosecond domain (an attosecond is a billionth of a billionth of a second). When perfectly controlled femtosecond pulses hit gas atoms in a so-called "target", their strong electric field first knocks an electron from the atom and then immediately hurls it back. The recaptured electron emits the absorbed energy as a short light flash in the XUV (extremely short-wave ultraviolet) region.
The flash emitted by a single atom is immeasurable weak. However, millions of atoms are targeted by the femtosecond pulses and subsequently emit attosecond flashes perfectly synchronized with millisecond timing. This generates a strongly collimated laser-type beam of light pulses with a duration of 250 attoseconds. The SCIENCE journal celebrated the first production of attosecond radiation as one of the 10 most important achievements in science in 2002.
In 2003 Professor Krausz was appointed Director at Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ), where he is head of the "Attosecond and High-Field Physics" division. In 2004 he was also made head of the Department of Experimental Physics at Ludwig Maximilian’s University of Munich (LMU). The main interest of his MPQ-LMU-team is the control and real-time observation of the motion of electrons in atoms, molecules and solids using attosecond measuring technique.
Professor Krausz and his team are also pursuing the goal of developing new tools (e.g. high-energy electron and X-ray beams) for investigating microscopic processes with high resolution in both space and time. Such tools would constitute a space-time microscope that makes the motion of electrons visible with subatomic resolution in slow motion. The new radiation sources could also afford new prospects in structural biology and in the diagnosis and therapy of cancer.
Source: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
-
Physicists observe electron ejected from atom for first time
Oct 12, 2010 |
4.7 / 5 (33) |
7
-
K-State's fast laser research and theory building on Einsten's work by timing electrons emissions
May 21, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (4) |
0
-
New light at the end of the tunnel
Oct 17, 2011 |
5 / 5 (3) |
7
-
White laser pulses with precisely tailored waveform enable control of electrons in microcosm
Sep 09, 2011 |
5 / 5 (4) |
2
-
Characterizing behavior of individual electrons during chemical reactions
Aug 15, 2011 |
5 / 5 (5) |
4
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Understanding induced emfs
1 hour ago
-
What is the precise definition of a year?
2 hours ago
-
Universe as a cellular automaton
3 hours ago
-
Question about Newton's laws
4 hours ago
-
Gravity Question (I think) with mass and speed
6 hours ago
-
Can you manipulate any formula in Physics?
7 hours ago
- More from Physics Forums - General Physics
More news stories
Explained: Sigma
It's a question that arises with virtually every major new finding in science or medicine: What makes a result reliable enough to be taken seriously? The answer has to do with statistical significance -- but ...
Feb 09, 2012 |
5 / 5 (19) |
65
Quantum physicist explains $100K offer for proof scaled-up quantum computing is impossible
(PhysOrg.com) -- MIT researcher Scott Aaronson has certainly riled the physics community with his offer this past Friday, of $100,000 to anyone who can prove that scaled-up quantum computing is impossible. ...
Diamond light, brighter than the sun
Its the size of five football pitches and generates light 10 billion times brighter than the sun. As the Diamond Light Source celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, Penny Bailey visits one of the ...
Feb 07, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (7) |
15
|
Physicists 'record' magnetic breakthrough
An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology.
Feb 07, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (41) |
14
|
Hints of the Higgs - papers are submitted
Back in December 2011, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN presented some exciting results that provided tantalising hints of the Higgs boson.
Feb 08, 2012 |
4.1 / 5 (7) |
10
Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...
GPS court ruling leaves US phone tracking unclear
A US Supreme Court decision requiring a warrant to place a GPS device on the car of a criminal suspect leaves unresolved the bigger issue of police tracking using mobile phones, legal experts say.
Europeans protest controversial Internet pact
Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.
Europe stakes billion-dollar bet on new rocket
A pencil-slim rocket is scheduled to lift into space from South America on Monday, carrying a billion-dollar bet that Europe can grab a juicy slice of the market to place satellites in low orbit.
Study finds that anti-diabetic medication can prevent the long-term effects of maternal obesity
In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in Dallas, Texas, researchers will report findings that show that short therapy with the anti-diabetic medication ...
Netflix settlement trims 14 pct off 4Q earnings
(AP) -- Netflix pressed the rewind button on its fourth-quarter earnings after settling allegations that the video subscription service violated a consumer-privacy law.