technology Attosecond lAsers
A dr come true eam
these structural funds to build up its research infrastructure instead.
Artist impression of the proposed building that will house the eli-Alps facility, which will be the most intense laser in the world when it is completed in 2015. Image courtersy of ELI-Hu Kft. and Antal Lazar
A huge investment in an attosecond light pulse source in Hungary promises to enable us to see inside atoms and molecules. nadya Anscombe reports
E
ver since the electronic structure of an atom was first understood, physicists have dreamed of being able to see inside atoms and molecules in real time instead
of relying on models and calculations. That dream will soon come true thanks to events unfolding in Szeged, a small university town in Hungary. Szeged has recently been chosen as the site for the Attosecond Light Pulse Source (ALPS), one of the three pillars of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI), a pan-European facility that aims to host the most intense lasers in the world. Szeged, or even Hungary for that matter, is
perhaps not the most renowned European centre for atomic physics research, so how did it come to be chosen as host to what will be the world’s most powerful tool in the field of atomic physics? It all comes down to a clever decision by the Hungarian government to apply for EU structural funds to pay for this project, rather than trying to apply for scarce research funds. EU structural funds are usually used to develop traditional infrastructure such as roads and sewerage systems in the poorer European countries. But Hungary, together with the governments of the Czech Republic and Romania, decided to use
16 electro optics l APRIL 2011
‘This is the first time such funds have been used to build scientific infrastructure,’ says Karoly Osvay, from the University of Szeged, and project manager of the ELI Preparatory Phase Consortium, which was concluded recently. He says: ‘We are very excited. There are a few more bureaucratic processes we have to go through, but we hope to have the green light by the end of this year and start building in 2012 to 2013.’ The impact that ELI-ALPS will have on our understanding of physics and chemistry will be nothing short of phenomenal. While researchers, particularly in Europe, have made great strides in using attosecond sources to probe atoms and molecules, ELI-ALPS will provide them with an even more powerful tool to conduct even more detailed experiments.
ELI-ALPS will combine the short-wavelength and high flux of third-generation synchrotron sources with the unparalleled pulse duration of laser-driven harmonic sources. This will enable researchers to record freeze-frame images of the dynamic electronic-structural behaviour of complex systems, with attosecond-picometer resolution.
‘Not only will we be able to record images, we will also be able to have unprecedented control of microscopic processes,’ says Osvay. ‘For example, we will be able to track the motion of an electron or a hole along a molecule, eventually giving us precise control over reaction. This is particularly interesting to the medical and pharmaceutical industries.’
The whole research community is excited about the possibilities. Marc Vrakking, director of the attosecond science division at the Max- Born Institute in Berlin, Germany, believes ELI-ALPS has the potential to change the nature of molecular physics forever. ‘Today, if you want to know exactly where atoms are in a particular molecule, you have to know the relationship between its structure and absorption spectra,’ he says. ‘But using a facility like ELI-ALPS opens up the possibility of investigating molecules where we do not have this information.’
www.electrooptics.com
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