Andreas Becker

It is nowadays possible to generate laser pulses at wavelengths spanning the whole regime from deep-ultraviolet to midinfrared wavelengths. Moreover, control over pulse duration, carrier envelope phase and polarization has been achieved. We explore the application of this laser light for fundamental processes such as ionization, high harmonic generation etc.

The quest for studying ultrafast dynamics in matter has driven the development of laser pulses with ultrashort pulse durations. Currently, the shortest pulses have duration of a few tens of attoseconds (1 as = 10^-18 s). We study the application of such pulses to image electron dynamics in atoms and molecules.