Laser Control of Molecular Electronics-Femto to Attosecond Science

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Advances in modern laser technology allow for the generation of phase-controlled intense (few cycle) light pulses with which one can explore light-matter interactions in the nonlinear nonperturbative regime. The applications of this new technology for the development of a new science, Molecular Photonics, and the laser control of electronics in matter, requires advanced modelling and simulations using advanced high level parallel numerical algorithms. An important “spin-off” of this research, mainly theoretical and only recently experimental is the development of molecular high order harmonic generation, MHOHG as the main source of current attosecond (1 asec=10**-18s) pulses, from linear to even circular (as proposed recently by us) polarization. Attosecond pulses are the preferred tools for imaging, visualizing and controlling electrons on their natural timescale, the attosecond (the electron orbit period in the H atom is 152 asecs). Nuclear motion such as proton motion, the fastest atom in chemistry, biology, and materials has its own time scale of few femtoseconds (fs) which adds another timescale to the control of matter at the atomic and molecular level. The proposal will focus on developing theories, numerical methods and simple practical models of laser-molecule interactions in the nonlinear nonperturbative regime. Highly efficient parallel numerical algorithms will be developed for High dimension partial differential equations, PDE’s such as Time Dependent Schroedinger Equations, TDSE’s, Time-Dependent Dirac Equation, TDDE’s for relativistic effects, coupled to Maxwell equations for propagation effects in order to explore applications of new ultrafast intense laser technologies to the new field of Molecular Photonics. High level simulations on Compute Canada’s supercomputing facilities such as the 40 000 core machine at U de S will serve to invent and refine simple models of ultrafast laser control of matter for use by experimentalists. The research in this proposal will serve to catalyze novel applications of ultrafast intense laser science in a wide range of fields such as nanotechnology and life sciences, based on the new scientific direction – the ultimate visualization and control of the quantum nature of the electron. High performance supercomputer numerical simulations supported by the development of useful analytical models will be performed for the three fundamental PDE’s of ultrafast intense Molecular Photonics: TDSE’s, TDDE’s, coupled to Maxwell’s equations. The simulations and models will be used to explore new applications of the following novel laser induced physical processes: i) LIED – Laser Induced Electron Diffraction; ii) LIET – Laser Induced Electron Transfer; iii) PEHG – Photo Electron Holography; iv) Coherent Electron Wave Packets – CEWP’s, and Currents; v) Circular Polarization Attosecond Laser-Magnetic Pulses; vi) Super Intense Lasers and Relativity. Micro-macro nonlinear optics is developed further through Maxwell’s equations allowing for exploration of new nonlinear macroscopic phenomena such as laser solitons, filamentation, attosecond magnetic pulses and relativistic phenomena in the nonlinear nonperturbative regime of laser-matter interaction.