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Ultrafast lasers. Strobe light breaks the attosecond barrier
Science (New York, N.Y.)
|June 2, 2001
Abstract:
On page 1689 of this issue, physicists report creating the fastest strobe light ever made, with individual pulses lasting just 220 attoseconds, or 220 billionths of a billionth of a second. These unimaginably short pulses are the first to be confirmed as breaking the attosecond barrier, a goal of high-speed-laser researchers for nearly a decade. Such pulses may one day serve as an ultrafast camera, allowing researchers to freeze action and perhaps to spot the gyrations of individual electrons whirling around an atomic nucleus.
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