Atom spectroscopy: The great electron escape
Researchers have 'observed' electrons being stripped away from atoms by intense light fields. The technique used should offer control over, and provide insights into, the dynamics of electrons inside atoms and molecules.
Given enough energy, electrons can ‘tunnel’ through the potential barrier that normally binds them to their nucleus, and escape. Ferenc Krausz and colleagues have now ‘seen’ this light-induced electron tunnelling happen in real time on the attosecond — that’s one billionth of one billionth of a second — timescale.
The team ionized neon atoms with ultrafast far-ultraviolet pulses, and then probed them with near-infrared pulses. From the observed spectra, they were then able to reconstruct the electron tunnelling.
CONTACT
Ferenc Krausz (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching, Germany)
Tel: +49 89 3290 5602; E-mail: ferenc.krausz@mpq.mpg.de
Jonathan P. Marangos (Imperial College London, UK) N&V author
Tel: +44 20 7594 7857; E-mail: j.marangos@imperial.ac.uk