Matter under Extreme Conditions

  The MEC laboratory is a fundamental research lab where two closely related topics are investigated, on the one hand the interaction of matter with a strong laser field, i.e., at high power density, on the other hand the matter at very high energy density, i.e., hot dense plasmas. The MEC lab is composed of 3 interacting research groups, namely Attophysics, Physics at High Intensity (PHI), and High Energy Density Matter (HEDM).

Physique et chimie femtoseconde-attoseconde / Femtosecond-attosecond physics and chemistry

While the pulse durations of infrared lasers are reaching the fundamental limitation imposed by the duration of the optical cycle (a few femtoseconds), High-order Harmonic Generation has recently opened a new field by accessing the attosecond regime (1as = 10-18 s). HHG spectra are made of lines corresponding to the odd multiples of the fundamental laser frequency, and can cover a very broad spectral range, from visible light to soft X-rays.