Laser synchronization with a resolution down to one atomic unit of time
01/2023 - The ATTO group at the university of Freiburg has demonstrated the synchronization between a free-electron laser and an infrared pulse with attosecond time resolution for the first time. They published their result in nature photonics.
The ATTO group at the university of Freiburg has recently demonstrate the possibility to characterize on a single-shot basis the synchronization between the seeded free-electron laser FERMI@Elettra in Italy and an infrared pulse with a resolution down to one atomic unit of time (24 as). This is the first time that a resolution in the attosecond domain can be achieved at large scale facilities.
"Our approach will open completely new perspectives for the time-resolved investigation of attosecond dynamics at free-electron lasers" reports G. Sansone, who led the large international collaborations behind the results.
The novel technique is based on the measurement of the sidebands created by multi-infrared photon transitions in combination with a magnetic bottle electron spectrometer. The correlation plot of the single-shot sideband intensity (shown in panel a) allows one to reorder all measurements according to their relative synchronization and observe the oscillations of the sideband intensities as a function of the relative phase between the two field (panel b).
- The results are presented in the publication:
"Attosecond coherent control of electronic wave packets in two-colour photoionization using a novel timing tool for seeded free-electron laser" P. K. Maroju et al., Nature Photonics (2023)
- Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Sansone (Attosecond and Strong Field Physics Group)