Related papers: Strongly aligned and oriented molecular samples at…
We show that circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulses produce field-free alignment in linear and planar molecules. We study the rotational wavepacket evolution of O$_2$ and benzene created by circularly polarized light. For benzene, we…
We demonstrate compression and shaping of few cycle pulses from a high average power Ytterbium laser system. The pulses from a commercial 20 W, 100 kHz Yb laser system are spectrally broadened in two-stages using gas-filled, stretched…
Control of molecular rotations by laser fields is an active area of research focusing on the alignment/orientation of otherwise isotropic molecular samples. Oriented molecules are useful in many applications, such as molecular orbital…
We propose a method for slowing particles by laser fields that potentially has the ability to generate large forces without the associated momentum diffusion that results from the random directions of spontaneously scattered photons. In…
Using the tilted-pulse-intensity-front scheme, we generate single-cycle terahertz (THz) pulses by optical rectification of femtosecond laser pulses in LiNbO3. In the THz generation setup, the condition that the image of the grating…
Photons, electrons, and their interplay are at the heart of photonic devices and modern instruments for ultrafast science [1-10]. Nowadays, electron beams of the highest intensity and brightness are created by photoemission with short laser…
Molecular ions can be held in a chain of laser-cooled atomic ions by sympathetic cooling. This system is ideal for performing high-precision molecular spectroscopy with applications in astrochemistry and fundamental physics. Here we show…
The recent progress towards production of near-ground state quantum-degenerate molecules raises the issue of how such "small" molecules behave in an optical lattice. In this Letter we show that the coupling of the molecular orientation to…
Following excitation by a strong ultra-short laser pulse, molecules develop coordinated rotational motion, exhibiting transient alignment along the direction of the laser electric field, followed by periodic full and fractional revivals…
Laser control of molecular rotation is an area of active research. A number of recent studies has aimed at expanding the reach of rotational control to extreme, previously inaccessible rotational states, as well as controlling the…
During the past decade, the interaction of high-intensity lasers with solid targets has attracted much interest, regarding its potential in accelerating charged particles. In spite of tremendous progress in laser-plasma based acceleration,…
We photoionize laser-cooled atoms with a laser beam possessing spatially periodic intensity modulations to create ultracold neutral plasmas with controlled density perturbations. Laser-induced fluorescence imaging reveals that the density…
We have constructed a pulsed laser system for the manipulation of cold Rb atoms. The system combines optical telecommunications components and frequency doubling to generate light at 780 nm. Using a fast, fibre-coupled intensity modulator,…
We present a novel method for probing the alignment of the molecular axis of an ultracold, nonpolar dimer. These results are obtained using diatomic $^{87}\textrm{Rb}_2$ molecules in the vibrational ground state of the lowest triplet…
Trapped ions are one of the most promising approaches for the realization of a universal quantum computer. Faster quantum logic gates could dramatically improve the performance of trapped-ion quantum computers, and require the development…
This research demonstrates high-repetition-rate laser-accelerated ion beams via dual, intersecting, counterpropagating laser-driven blast waves to precisely shape underdense gas into long-lived near-critical density targets. The collision…
Scaling femtosecond terahertz (THz) and ultraviolet (UV) sources to high repetition rates is essential for high-throughput ultrafast spectroscopy and imaging applications. Yet, their efficient generation at high average power remains…
High-harmonic generation is one of the most extreme nonlinear-optical processes observed to date. By focusing an intense laser pulse into a gas, the light-atom interaction that occurs during the process of ionising the atoms results in the…
Direct imaging of molecular dynamics is a long-standing goal in physics and chemistry. As an emerging tool, high-harmonic spectroscopy (HHS) enables accessing molecular dynamics on femtosecond to attosecond time scales. However, decoding…
We propose a novel technique for the creation of maximally entangled symmetric Dicke states in an ion trap using adiabatic passage, which requires only a pair of chirped pulses from a single laser and is applicable to any number of ions and…