Attosecond Science Applied to Atoms and Molecules

每个人都看到过蜂鸟飞行或子弹穿过苹果的高速照片。今天，激光速度如此之快，以至于可以冻结原子的运动，让我们能够看到分子内部。在过去的10年里，出现了一个新的领域，称为阿秒科学。阿秒科学依赖于一种新型的激光光源，在这种光源中，单个原子发射出极强的紫外线辐射，并具有激光的所有特征--相干、准直和亮度。阿秒科学彻底改变了高速摄影的概念，因为它现在允许我们跟踪原子和分子中单个电子的运动。与此同时，阿秒科学背后的技术使我们能够在极短的时间尺度和量子水平上创造出关于物质结构和动力学的新探测器。*正是形成化学键的电子定义了我们周围的世界，并对生命本身负责。我们将应用阿秒技术来观察NO2和SO2等大气小分子的化学反应过程中的电子重排。我们将在光谱的软X射线部分开发更强的光源，用于快速生物显微镜。我们将使用阿秒脉冲来观察原子和分子的内壳层动力学。*这项研究将由渥太华大学和NRC阿托秒联合科学实验室的研究生以及INRS-EMT的高级激光光源进行。

Everyone has seen high speed photographs of a hummingbird in flight or of a bullet passing through an apple. Today, lasers are so fast that they can freeze the motion of atoms and allow us to see inside molecules. In the past 10 years, a new field has emerged, called attosecond science. Attosecond science relies on a new type of laser source in which individual atoms emit bursts of extreme ultraviolet radiation and have all the characteristics of a laser - coherence, collimation and brightness. Attosecond science has revolutionized the concept of high speed photography, as it now permits us to follow the motion of individual electrons within atoms and molecules. At the same time, the technology underlying attosecond science allows us to create new probes of the structure and dynamics of matter on an extremely brief time scale and at the quantum level.****It is the electrons that form the chemical bonds that define the world around us and are responsible for life itself. The ability to see how the electrons rearrange themselves in response to absorbing a photon will give insight into the first steps of vision, into photosynthesis, and into photochemical reactions.****We will apply attosecond techniques to observe electron rearrangement during chemical reactions in small atmospheric molecules such as NO2 and SO2. We will develop more intense light sources in the soft x-ray portion of the spectrum for fast biological microscopy. We will use attosecond pulses to observe inner shell dynamics of atoms and molecules.****The research will be performed by graduate students at the Joint Attosecond Science Laboratory at the University of Ottawa and NRC, as well as at the Advanced Laser Light Source at INRS-EMT.********