Quantum optics: ultrafast and high-field processes

Ultrafast laser technology is eveolving at a dramatic pace. Intense light pulses containing just a few cycles of the laser field are about to dramatically push the frontiers of pure and applied optics as well as quantum electronics. The extended frontiers of these disciplines will impact a number of fields including but not limited to atomic, plasma and high-energy physics, physical chemistry, molecular biology as well as medical diagnosis and therapy. These light pulses have recently led to the production of flashes of X-rays that are shorter than 1 femtosecond in duration (1 femtosecond is 1 trillionth of a second). Sub-femtosecond pulses provide, for the first time, access to the motion of electrons inside atoms and thereby insight into processes that take place within volumes inaccessible to even the best microscopes offering atomic resolution. Owing to the emerging field of attosecond spectroscopy, sub-atomic resolution in time is now within reach, probably long before microscopes can look into atoms in space. Simultaneously, we are just about to synthesize intense few-cycle pulses in which the electromagnetic field evolves in a precisely determined way. With these "synthesized" light waves we shall be able to control the motion of electrons (and other charged particles) on a microscopic scale with an unprecedented precision. Expected implications include the development of compact laboratory sources of coherent (laser-like) beams of X-rays and high-energy charged particles for a number of applications ranging from structural analysis (materials science and molecular biology) to cancer diagnosis and therapy (medicine). Work on the frontiers of ultrafast science holds out the promise of exploring new phenomena, developing new tools and techniques for both scientific research and real-world applications. This is the spectrum of activities that I wish to pursue in my research in the years to come.