Related papers: Lighting the Landscape: Molecular Events Under Dyn…
Strong-field phenomena driven by an intense infrared (IR) laser depend on during what part of the field cycle they are initiated. By changing the sub-cycle character of the laser electric field it is possible to control such phenomena. For…
We introduce a new optical tool - a "two-dimensional optical centrifuge", capable of aligning molecules in extreme rotational states. Unlike the conventional centrifuge, which confines the molecules in the plane of their rotation, its…
The production of molecules from dual species atomic quantum gases has enabled experiments that employ molecules at nanoKelvin temperatures. As a result, every degree of freedom of these molecules is in a well-defined quantum state and…
When a strong laser pulse induces the ionization of an atom, momentum conservation dictates that the absorbed photons transfer their momentum $p_{\gamma}=E_{\gamma}/c$ to the electron and its parent ion. Even after 30 years of studying…
Dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) use the nearfields created when a laser pulse impinges on a dielectric structure to accelerate charged particles. We provide an overview of the theory of operation of photon driven accelerators, from…
We demonstrate that the angular distribution of photoelectrons from a strongly polarizable target exposed to a laser field can deviate noticeably from the prediction of conventional theory. Even within the dipole-photon approximation the…
We investigate the non-resonant all-optical switching of magnetization. We treat the inverse Faraday effect (IFE) theoretically in terms of the spin-selective optical Stark effect for linearly or circularly polarized light. In the dilute…
The simultaneous laser-driven acceleration and angular manipulation of the fast electron beam is experimentally demonstrated. The bunch of multi-MeV energy charged particles is generated during the propagation of the femtosecond laser pulse…
We present combined experimental and theoretical results on strong-field ionization of oriented carbonyl-sulphide molecules by circularly-polarized laser pulses. The obtained molecular frame photoelectron angular distributions show…
The dynamics of electron injection in the direct laser acceleration (DLA) regime was investigated by means of three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and theoretical analysis. It is shown that when an ultra-intense laser pulse…
Nonadiabatic effects are ubiquitous in physics, chemistry and biology. They are strongly amplified by conical intersections (CIs) which are degeneracies between electronic states of triatomic or larger molecules. A few years ago it has been…
Strong-field photoelectron momentum imaging of the prototypical biomolecule indole was disentangled in a combined experimental and computational approach. Experimentally, strong control over the molecules enabled the acquisition of…
We present a new approach for investigating quantum effects in laser-driven plasma. Unlike the modelling strategies underpinning particle-in-cell codes that include the effects of quantum electrodynamics, our new field theory incorporates…
The swift excitation of the transparent dielectrics by intense short laser pulse produces ultra-fast re-structuring of the electronic landscape generating a wealth of material states continuously changing in space and in time in accord with…
Here we show that, despite a massive incident flux of energetic species, plasmas can induce transient cooling of a material surface. Using time-resolved optical thermometry in-situ with this plasma excitation, we reveal the novel underlying…
High power lasers have proven being capable to produce high energy gamma rays, charged particles and neutrons to induce all kinds of nuclear reactions. At ELI, the studies with high power lasers will enter for the first time into new…
We calculate the effect of intense laser fields on nuclear alpha decay processes, using realistic and quantitative nuclear potentials. We show that alpha decay rates can indeed be modified by strong laser fields to some finite extent. We…
A model based on the strong-field and Born-Oppenheimer approximations qualitatively describes the distribution over vibrational states formed in a diatomic molecular ion following ionization of the neutral molecule by intense laser pulses.…
Light and matter can now interact in a regime where their coupling is stronger than their bare energies. This deep-strong coupling (DSC) regime of quantum electrodynamics promises to challenge many conventional assumptions about the physics…
The existing intense laser-based approaches for nuclear excitation offer ultrafast temporal resolution and high efficiency compared to traditional accelerator probes. However, controlling nuclear properties such as spin and magnetic moment…