Research

ATTOSECOND ELECTRON DYNAMICS: FROM ATOMS TO COMPLEX SYSTEMS

The temporal resolution provided by XUV attosecond pulses (1 as= 10-18 s) allows one to follow the electron dynamics in matter. The research activity is focused on the investigation of the ultrafast electron dynamics occurring in atoms, simple molecules, biomolecules and nanoparticles.

ATTOSECOND PHYSICS IN MOLECULES

The relaxation dynamics of highly excited states in molecules can be very fast, the use of femtosecond or attosecond techniques is required if one wishes to time-resolve the process. Isolated attosecond pulses and trains of attosecond pulses have recently been used for the investigation of electron dynamics in molecules. Sub- femtosecond electron localization after attosecond excitation was observed in H2 and D2 molecules. More recently we studied the electron dynamics occurring in N2 following XUV photoionization.

ATTOSECOND PHYSICS IN BIOMOLECULES

Charge migration process, which is currently a hot topic in attosecond science, will be studied. Indeed, this process plays a crucial role in fundamental biological mechanisms such as the transmission of biological signals in proteins and DNA. Aminoacids and small peptides are currently under investigation by using state of the art experimental techniques based on the use of high-energy attosecond pulses.
Collaboration with Prof. Jason Greenwood, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK.

ATTOSECOND PHYSICS IN NANOPARTICLES

Control of electron dynamics in nano-materials can revolutionize modern electronics by achieving much higher computation and communication speeds. A key to demonstrating this enormous potential is to understand and control collective electron dynamics in nanostructured materials on few-femtosecond to sub-femtosecond time scales and monitor this control with resolutions in the nanometer scale. To this purpose, attosecond dynamics in dielectric (SiO2, TiO2, …) and metallic (Au, Ag, …) nanoparticles as well as small clusters are currently investigated.

Collaboration with Prof. Matthias Kling, MPQ, Garching, Germany.

COLLABORATIONS

We collaborate with a number of European research groups, active in the field of attosecond technology.

  • Luca Poletto (IFN-CNR, Padova, Italy)
  • Lorenzo Avaldi, Paola Bolognesi, Patrick Okeeffe (IMIP, Roma, Italy)
  • Jason Greenwood (Queen’s University Belfast, UK)
  • Matthias Kling (Max Planck Institute, Garching, Germany)
  • Fernando Martín (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain)
  • Raluca Cireasa (ISMO, Orsay, France)
  • Majdi Hochlaf (Université Paris-Est, Marne-la-Vallée, France)
  • Gabriel Tempea (Femtolasers, Vienna, Austria)
  • Marc Vrakking (Max Born Institute, Berlin, Germany)
  • Anne L’Huillier, Per Johnsson (Lund University, Lund, Sweden)
  • John Marangos (Imperial College, London, UK)
  • Carlo Altucci, Raffaele Velotta (Università Federico II, Napoli, Italy)
  • Eric Constant ( Université de Bordeaux, Talence, France)