MBI Colloquium
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Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy
Max-Born-Straße 2a,
12489 Berlin
Max Born Hall
Quantum trajectories of Bloch electrons driven by lightwaves
Prof. Rupert Huber
Regensburg University
Lightwave electronics has emerged as a vibrant research field at the interface of electronics and optics. The key idea is to exploit the oscillating carrier field of light as an ultrafast bias to accelerate electrons faster than a cycle of light. As these femto- to attosecond time scales are shorter than typical scattering times of electrons, lightwave-driven electrons can move ballistically even in solids, unleashing a fascinating coherent quantum world.
We will discuss prominent examples of lightwave-driven dynamics, ranging from Bloch oscillations via topologically non-trivial electron trajectories to attoclocking of Bloch electrons. We also take slow-motion movies of single molecules and atomic defects and observe the quantum flow of electrons with the first all-optical subcycle microscope reaching atomic resolution. Our results offer a radically new way of watching and controlling elementary dynamics in nature or steer chemical reactions, on their intrinsic spatio-temporal scales.