Attosecond physics - at nanometric solids

Just decorated with the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, the field of attosecond science and technology continues to blossom. In this talk, I will show many of the pivotal effects of attosecond physics, however, not at an individual quantum object such as an atom or a molecule in the gas phase, but at the surface of a room-temperature nanometric needle tip. We could observe many of the pivotal effects of attosecond physics:

the famous re-collision plateau, strong effects of the exact shape of the driving waveform, and recently also more complex two color-controlled coherent electron dynamics. Based on the insights from this experiment, I will show that we have now entered the realm of precision attosecond physics, with electrons photo-emitted from a solid.

I will show where the field stands, what insights can be gained from this new understanding of electron dynamics on attosecond time scales, and where the field might be going. Last, I will shed light on related results around attosecond level control over a free electron beam. In particular, I will show that with a proper understanding of the optical forces acting on such a free electron beam inside of a nanophotonic structure, we can accelerate and confine free electrons efficiently by the optical forces, making the particle accelerator on a chip a reality.