[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/6099\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n      1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n      2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n      3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n        \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n  \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u2018Molecular movies\u2019 bring atomic world into focus\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s all down to attosecond lasers, which have been designed to emit a burst of light that lasts only a few attoseconds, or billionths of a billionth of a second. For scale, the difference between an attosecond and a second is the same as the difference between a second and the age of the universe.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe images gathered through these tiny snapshots are being collated by scientists to create so-called molecular movies, which are providing unprecedented insight into how electrons behave.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Professor Marc Vrakking, at the Max Born Institute in Berlin, most of what we know about atoms and materials comes from the way in which their electrons interact with light. Understanding more about this interaction will give scientists new insights into the molecular world and potential ways to manipulate it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018We still do not know why electrons behave the way that they do,\u2019 he said. \u2018The practical applications (of the new lasers) are vast. But the most important advance is that attosecond science makes it possible to ask questions that could not have been answered before.\u2019\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022text-center text-blue font-bold text-2xl w-full lg:w-1\/2 border-2 border-blue p-12 my-8 lg:m-12 lg:-ml-16 float-left\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Cspan class=\u0022text-5xl rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n  \u003Cp class=\u0022font-serif italic\u0022\u003E\u2018Attosecond science makes it possible to ask questions that could not have been answered before.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\n  \u003Cfooter\u003E\n    \u003Ccite class=\u0022not-italic font-normal text-sm text-black\u0022\u003EProfessor Marc Vrakking, Max Born Institute, Berlin, Germany\u003C\/cite\u003E\n  \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProf. Vrakking coordinates the EU-funded ATTOFEL training network, which helps laboratories extend the depth and range of experiments in this emerging field. His team recently managed to track the behaviour of electrons ionised from Helium atoms over 200 attosecond time periods, compiling a movie in which their momentum shifts in response to light pulses.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIncreasing clarity\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore attoscience, the problem with viewing the precise movement of electrons - for example in a chemical reaction - has been that they move over timescales that are measured in billionths of a billionth of a second.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore a wave of visible light has even had time to complete an oscillation, the electron that scientists are trying to locate will have orbited its parent atom a dozen times over and the result looks as blurred as speeding traffic in a long-exposure photograph.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, the challenge for scientists working on attosecond lasers went further than designing a way of emitting such short pulses of light. They also had to find a way of measuring them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor Anne L\u2019Huillier, who now leads the Attosecond Physics group at Lund University in Sweden, a partner in the ATTOFEL network, provided a partial solution to the first challenge together with her colleagues. When she fired numerous infrared rays into a noble gas she discovered that the gas then released back a few pulses of rapidly oscillating, extreme ultraviolet light.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe ability to produce light with such a short wavelength in a laboratory setting created the foundations for following the movement of electrons in more precise detail. \u2018This result provided the first hope of time-resolving electronic processes,\u2019 said Prof. \u003Cspan\u003EL\u2019Huillier\u003C\/span\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, because most materials absorb ultraviolet light, scientists also had to develop new ways of measuring these pulses by developing new optical components on the spot and performing the experiments under vacuum. The demands on equipment precision and stability were stringent as light crosses only a few hundred atoms in the timeframe of the measurements.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGenerating conductivity\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAttoscience research is still at a basic stage, with many of the potential applications yet to be discovered. However, scientists working on ATTOFEL and other EU-funded projects, such as ATTOTRON at the Max Planck Institute in Garching, are starting to investigate attosecond processes in solids.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor Reinhard Kienberger, who worked with Prof. \u003Cspan\u003EL\u2019Huillier\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003Ein the EU-funded ATTO network to develop the technology, is now working on using attosecond laser pulses to cause currents to circulate in glass.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Turning a material conductive with a flash of light could lead to electronic switches (which are) orders of magnitude faster than the transistors that we have in computers today,\u2019 he said. \u2018Still, the real excitement lies in discovering what remarkable new properties these techniques are revealing in materials.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EProf. Vrakking and his team tracked how electrons ejected from a helium atom respond to the attosecond pulses fired at them. Video courtesy Johan Mauritsson and\u0026nbsp;Marc Vrakking.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n            \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n      Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-a-dfrbci4kctzqfui48hlhxdd9vwd3cuavhzyjdx2ba\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-A-dfRBcI4KctzQFui48hLhxDd9vwD3cUavhZYjdX2BA\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]