Abstract
The accurate measurement of time lies at the heart of experimental science, and is relevant to everyday life. Extending chronoscopy to ever shorter timescales has been the key to gaining real-time insights into microscopic phenomena, ranging from vital biological processes to the dynamics underlying high technologies. The generation of isolated attosecond pulses in 2001 allowed the fastest of all motions outside the nucleus — electron dynamics in atomic systems — to be captured. Attosecond metrology has provided access to several hitherto immeasurably fast electron phenomena in atoms, molecules and solids. The fundamental importance of electron processes for the physical and life sciences, technology and medicine has rendered the young field of attosecond science one of the most dynamically expanding research fields of the new millennium. Here, we review the basic concepts underlying attosecond measurement and control techniques. Among their many potential applications, we focus on the exploration of the fundamental speed limit of electronic signal processing. This endeavour relies on ultimate-speed electron metrology, as provided by attosecond technology.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank V. Apalkov, N. Karpowicz and V. Yakovlev for valuable discussions. Financial support provided by the Munich Centre for Advanced Photonics is acknowledged. For M.I.S.'s work, the primary support was provided by grant No. DE-FG02-11ER46789 from the Materials Sciences and Engineering Division, Office of the Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy; additional support was provided by Grant No. DE-FG02-01ER15213 from the Chemical Sciences, Biosciences and Geosciences Division, Office of the Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy, and MURI Grant No. N00014-13-1-0649 from the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
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Krausz, F., Stockman, M. Attosecond metrology: from electron capture to future signal processing. Nature Photon 8, 205–213 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.28
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