Attosecond light-matter interaction

Absorption and emission of light are two of the most fundamental processes, and it is a valid question to ask how fast these processes are. They are based on electron motion. Attosecond pulses allow the observation of attosecond dynamics of electron motion in a variety of different systems. One method to measure such ultrafast dynamics is based on the technique “reconstruction of attosecond beating by the interference of two-photon transitions” (also called RABBITT). As the name suggests, the RABBITT method is based on two-photon transition steps: a train of attosecond pulses ionizes the system, this is the first step, and a weak probe field drives a continuum-continuum dipole transition. In this presentation, I will introduce the basic concepts of the generation of attosecond pulse trains and their applications.