Attosecond electron pulses for 4D diffraction and microscopy
- Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology, Arthur Amos Noyes Laboratory of Chemical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125
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Contributed by Ahmed H. Zewail, September 27, 2007 (received for review September 12, 2007)
Abstract
In this contribution, we consider the advancement of ultrafast electron diffraction and microscopy to cover the attosecond time domain. The concept is centered on the compression of femtosecond electron packets to trains of 15-attosecond pulses by the use of the ponderomotive force in synthesized gratings of optical fields. Such attosecond electron pulses are significantly shorter than those achievable with extreme UV light sources near 25 nm (≈50 eV) and have the potential for applications in the visualization of ultrafast electron dynamics, especially of atomic structures, clusters of atoms, and some materials.
Footnotes
- *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zewail{at}caltech.edu
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Author contributions: P.B. and A.H.Z. performed research and wrote the paper.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0709019104/DC1.
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Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
- © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
