Ultrabright Sources of Attosecond Pulses

The internal mechanics of atomic and molecular electronic systems operate on a timescale of attoseconds (10-18s) which require sources of intense bursts of light on this same timescale both for the control and probing of such ultrafast dynamics. One promising route to such a source is the intense interaction of a laser pulse with a solid density plasma surface which leads to relativistic electron motion and nonlinear modulation of the incident field corresponding to the presence of ultrahigh frequencies confined to attosecond scale bursts. Such bursts have applications in the study of bound electron dynamics important for atomic physics and even control and study of atto-chemistry - the microscope details of ultrafast charge motion in atoms and molecules.

Continuous advances in high intensity laser technology are bringing the widespread realisation of these sources closer to reality but significant questions still exist. What are the detailed microscopic dynamics that dictate the frequency scaling, pulse duration and efficiency of this process? Can individual pulses with sufficient brightness to perform full attosecond scale pump-probe studies using existing laser facilities and what parameters are possible with the next generation of laser technology? How can we bridge numerical simulations of this interaction to observed experimental scalings which don't always agree?

This will comprise of both experimental work at various high power laser facilities in the UK and Europe and the use of numerical simulation codes to model the interaction. The student is working alongside experienced researchers in the Centre for Plasma Physics (CPP) and will be particularly involved in the planning and implementation of experiments on the TARANIS laser system based there and at a variety of major facilities globally (eg. the Central Laser Facility in the UK and the JETI200 laser at the Helmholtz Institute Jena in Germany).