Using attosecond light pulses to doubly ionize a coherent doubly excited state, we show that the time-resolved correlated motion can be probed directly from the measured electron angular distributions.
If another linearly polarized attosecond pulse (the probe pulse) centered at 100 eV doubly ionizes the helium atom in the mixed state as illustrated in the right graph of Figure 9.1, the ionization probability depends on the time delay between the pump and the probe pulses. The probability is higher when the two electrons are located near each other, as depicted in Figure 9.2. Experimentally, one can measure the doubly ionized helium ion (He2þ) signal as function of time delay between the probe pulse and the pump pulse. The He2þ yield as a function of the time delay would inform us how the electron separation changes with time. Hu and Collins’s simulation shows that the separation changes periodically with a 2 fs cycle, which can be observed with the attosecond pulses. The cycle is much larger than the 200 as corresponding to the energy difference between the ground state and the first excited state (1s2p) because other excited states are involved.
Within this work, electron dynamics in atoms are experimentally and numerically investigated on their natural attosecond time scales. To access these dynamics, ultrashort and moderately-intense few-cycle laser pulses are superposed with attosecond pulsed radiation in the extreme-ultraviolet spectral region. Both these sources are combined in a new experimental vacuum setup which was designed and built up from scratch, also in order to generate the attosecond pulses. Novel experimental schemes are developed which involve the temporal and spectral interferometric utilization of both ultrashort light sources and include the multidimensional spectroscopy employing different dynamical parameters. These are the intensity and the carrier-envelope phase of the laser pulses, as well as their temporal delay with respect to the attosecond pulses. Scientifically, the observation and control of the quantum-motion of bound electrons, as well as the laser-driven quasi-classical motion of free electrons was a key goal of this work. In particular, a bound two-electron wave packet in helium on attosecond time scales was experimentally observed for the first time. This was realized by combining unprecedented high temporal and spectral resolution. In addition, a new coupling mechanism of several doubly-excited states to an effective single-electron continuum is identified and analyzed. Both these two-electron states as well as single-electron states are interferometrically investigated with access to the phase of their quantum-mechanical wave function. This allows the observation and control of the quantum dynamics of two correlated electrons in atoms on the attosecond time scale which was demonstrated within the scope of this work.
The past thirty years witnessed rapid developing of strong field physics that leads to the first generation of attosecond (10−18 s) pulses. The duration of available pulses has recently been reduced to less than 100 as, approaching the Kepler period of a classical electron revolving around the nucleus. For the first time, electron motions inside atoms, molecules and solids can be traced, probed and even steered in real time. It pushed the study on ultrafast dynamic processes into a new frontier, giving birth to attosecond physics. The development of attosecond pulses provides unprecedented coherent ultrashort XUV (extreme ultra-violet) of soft X-ray sources that enable imaging the atomic structure and resolving the related quantum dynamics for matter science. In particular, it allows the probing and monitoring of electron dynamics in the natural time scale of attoseconds with atomic spatial resolution. The generation and applications of attosecond pulses are directly related to the control and manipulation of the sub-cycle electron dynamics. Recent studies on the correlated multielectron dynamics have provided insight into the optical and dynamical properties of matter in the perspectives of time, phase and entanglement. It deepens our understanding on some of the fundamental questions, e.g., how the single or multiple photons are absorbed and how short are the quantum processes such as photoionization, tunneling ionization and charge migration. Although currently attosecond pulses are limited by the flux and pulse duration, the combination of attosecond pulses with intense infrared laser pulses paves new ways of controlling and probing electron dynamics in the domains of energy, time and space that lays the foundation for petahertz optoelectronics and attosecond pulse based transient spectroscopy. In this review, we will first briefly summarize the advancement of strong field and ultrafast physics including the relevant experimental findings, the theoretical explorations, the related technologies and the possible applications. Then we focus on the sub-cycle electron or multielectron dynamics and their manifestation on the ionization and coherent radiation properties. We start with the time behavior of Fano resonance and how it can be probed in time domain. In section 2, the correlated electron dynamics is discussed in term of anti-screening effect and Pauli effect that influence strong field ionization and high harmonic generation processes. In section 3, the coherent emission with frequency from terahertz to soft XUV and their joint measurement are discussed by emphasizing the generation mechanism of terahertz wave in two-color laser pulses. The developed high-harmonic and terahertz wave spectroscopy (HATS) is shown capable of imaging the molecular structure and dynamics. In section 4, the time-resolving of electron and hole dynamics and their coherence is proposed based on attosecond transient absorption technique. The coherence of ionization and the correlated electron dynamics is hinted crucial for electron-hole interaction. The topics are very limited and mainly selected from the perspectives of our group.