Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Attosecond science (1 as = 10-18 s), or attoscience, is uniquely capable of resolving the rapid motion of electrons in atoms and molecules. The principal aim of this proposal is to extend these laser-based techniques to study the motion of electrons in liquids and solids. These experiments will have a major impact in opening up a large frontier in light-matter interactions, namely quantum and nonlinear optics, photonics, electro-optics, condensed matter physics, and materials science. In addition, attoscience can be combined with other high spatial resolution techniques, such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), to resolve the motion of electrons in nano-engineered objects such as quantum wells, quantum dots, and nanotips. Our proposed technologies that have unprecedented sensitivity to attosecond electronic motion in external electric fields have potential applications not only for next-generation electronics, electrical engineering, and photonics, but also for molecular detection, standoff detection, and biosensing. The goal of my research group, the Attosecond Condensed Matter Experiments (ACME) laboratory at the University of Windsor, is to create and leverage these attosecond techniques and apply them to condensed matter to discover ultrafast processes, control electronic motion in engineered material, and develop new photonics technologies. In my lab, we will model, engineer, and exploit nonlinear processes in materials for attosecond pulse generation and detection. Although femtosecond (1 fs = 10-15 s) laser sources are commercially available, compressing these pulses to the attosecond regime is challenging, but essential for attoscience. We will investigate and develop these attosecond pulse sources in my group. Through strong-field laser pulses of just a few optical cycles, we will drive currents and follow electronic states to track electron dynamics. Furthermore, we will take advantage of the sensitivity of these highly nonlinear processes to perturbing fields as sensors for optical fields and to reconstruct optical waveforms, developing a novel tool for time-dependent infrared spectroscopy with unprecedented resolution. The increased sensitivity to perturbing fields can be leveraged with other established techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) for attosecond time resolution at the nanoscale, an unprecedented combination of two disparate areas of research. Moreover, through this technique we will develop an enhanced spectroscopic measurement in the infrared, where molecular vibrational signatures can distinguish biological samples, which will be useful for remote sensing and medicine.