Ultrafast Science
Ultrafast Science is the study of processes and interactions in atoms, molecules or materials on the native time scale. These time-scales are ultrafast. For instance, electrons move across atoms on the time scale of attoseconds (an attosecond is a billionth of a billionth of a second), and molecular excitation happens on a femtosecond time scale.
Measuring the microscopic interplay between quantum particles is key to understanding and controlling how the macroscopic world functions. Ultrafast Science encompasses the development of new probes of matter with ultrashort pulses of photons, electrons, or ions, and it pushes our frontier of knowledge with new investigations in quantum dynamics, nonlinear physics, strong-field interactions, chemistry or material science.
Activities
Experimental and theoretical research activities in Ultrafast Science make it possible to watch how the individual atoms of a molecule change their arrangement in time and space, to understand how light is absorbed and transformed into energy in proteins, how shaped light can transiently change matter, or how attosecond X-rays allow to watch how a material functions and a molecule isomerizes.
Attosecond Physics
Studies of fundamental and applied physics of high harmonic generation, above threshold ionization, non-sequential double ionization, laser induced electron diffraction, multi-body physics in atomic, molecular, solid-state systems. Quantum electrodynamics of strong field laser physics. Multi-body physics and strongly correlated systems.
Ultrafast phenomena
Soft-X-ray, UV to mid-IR and THz light sources. CW to pulsed, few-cycle carrier-envelope phase-stable to CW. Attosecond electron sources and diffraction. Lasers sources, parametric oscillators and OPCPAs. Extreme nonlinear optics, filamentation, soliton dynamics and X-wave physics. Photonic band gaps, fiber optics, topological photonics. Plasmonics, Exciton physics, light-matter hybrids, superconductivity, topological order, laser driven electronic and structural phase transitions in gas-phase, condensed matter systems and strongly correlated systems.
Ultrafast Nonlinear Optics
We exploit nonlinear optics in bulk dielectric media to develop uniquely versatile ultrafast, ultrabroadband, and ultratunable laser sources based on optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) providing access to the entire optical spectrum from the UV to deep-IR and in all time-scales from picosecond to few-cycle femtosecond domain. We study novel nonlinear materials and explore the application of our innovative OPO sources in spectroscopy, microscopy, imaging, biophotonics, and biomedicine.
Low-Intensity Nonlinear Optics
We develop and study innovative nonlinear laser light sources in low-intensity CW regime based on OPOs and other nonlinear frequency conversion techniques including harmonic generation and frequency mixing. We exploit the latest generation of laser sources in combination innovative design concepts to generate widely tunable coherent radiation from the UV to mid-IR. We deploy our cutting-edge low-intensity CW sources in applications including spectroscopy, material science, frequency synthesis, astronomy, and quantum optics.
Ultrafast nanophotonics
Nanophotonic and plasmonic structures exert very intense field confinement, therefore strongly enhance non-linear response. We study the broadband ultrafast 2nd and 3rd order nonlinear response of optical nanoantennas. By spectral phase control we create nanoscale hotspots with fs response.
Spatio-temporal transport
Ultrafast intrinsic dynamics is accompanied by ultrafast transfer in dense systems, such as 2D materials, perovskites, photovoltaic material and natural light harvesting systems. We study spatio-temporal transport on nanometer and femtosecond scale, using superresolved fs-ps transient microscopy. We address exciton, hot electron and photonic transport in varies energy materials.
Groups
Our group works in a highly interdisciplinary field which fuses ultrafast laser physics, extreme nonlinear optics, atomic and molecular physics, SXR spectroscopy, X-ray optics, UHV technology, and electron-ion coincidence imaging techniques.
We develop and study novel coherent light sources based on nonlinear frequency conversion techniques and OPO´s, from the UV to the mid-IR spectrum, and from the steady-state cw to femtosecond time-scales.
The Quantum Optics Theory (QOT) group works on a wide range of topics of theoretical physics from quantum optics aand laser physics through quantum information science and quantum technologies to quantum field theory.
Our group aims at understanding how changes in light, structure and environment regulate the molecular mechanisms of photoactive (bio)molecular systems.
Research focuses on nanoscale optical fields and single emitters, using advanced experiments where ultra-small (nanotechnology) and ultra-fast (femtosecond spectroscopy) come together.