The unprecedented possibilities for controlling these dynamics, and the significant potential spin-offs, have made this field a hot topic in the scientific community, with intense international competition.

Building on the expertise developed over the last 30 years, the AttoPhysique Group has set itself the following main objectives:

I) to understand and control the dynamics of intense laser field scattering of an electron with the ionic core, which leads to several important processes, such as elastic ion-electron scattering, multiple ionization, or recombination with attosecond pulses of XUV light;

II) to develop attosecond technologies, i.e. the synthesis of attosecond sources with controlled properties (polarization, single/multiple pulses separated in space/time, etc.), their advanced characterization using attosecond metrology, and the construction of integrated, stable and reliable attosecond light lines for users;

III) develop new types of spectroscopy (harmonic spectroscopy, attosecond photoionization spectroscopy) using attosecond emission to study ultrafast electronic and nuclear dynamics in the gas phase;

IV) Develop new lens-free imaging techniques with temporal (atto/femto) and spatial (nano) resolutions to resolve the dynamics of various processes (spin reversals of Co/Pd magnetic nano-domains, imaging of biological cells);

V) Study harmonic generation in solids: semiconductors, dielectrics, 2D materials (graphene, MoSe2, …), rich in potential applications: all-solid-sate attosecond pulse production, space-time manipulations (orbital or spin angular momentum control), nanoplasmonics, petahertz optoelectronics.

Pascal SALIERES
Head of ATTOphysics Group