Attosecond electron dynamics for optoelectronics

Website's Project

The temporal resolution provided by XUV attosecond pulses (1 as= 10-18 s) allows one to follow the electron dynamics in matter. The research activity at the basis of the thesis work is focused on the investigation of the ultrafast electron dynamics occurring in molecules of optoelectronic interest.

The goal of the project is to overcome the femtosecond time-scale bottleneck and get direct information on the early stages of electron and charge transfer generated by visible and ultraviolet light absorption on organic optoelectronic systems, by extending the tools of attosecond science beyond the state of the art.

The objective is to provide clear-cut movies of electron and charge transfer processes with unprecedented time resolution and with the ultimate goal of engineering the molecular response to optimize the light driven processes leading to the desired opto-electronic behaviour.


The activity will be carried out in a newly developed attosecond beamline featuring sub-3-fs UV pulses for photoexcitation of the system under scrutiny and isolated attosecond pulses in the extreme ultraviolet spectral range for probing the dynamics via photoelectron/photoion spectroscopy.

The research activity is within an ERC-funded project: ERC Synergy Grant “TOMATTO – The ultimate time scale in organic molecular opto-electronics, the attosecond”: http://tomatto.eu/.


Bibliography:

  1. M. Reduzzi, et al., “Direct temporal characterization of sub-3-fs deep UV pulses generated by resonant dispersive wave emission,” Optics Express 31, 26854 (2023).
  2. F. Vismarra, et al., “Isolated attosecond pulse generation in a semi-infinite gas cell driven by time-gated phase matching,” Light: Science&Applications 13, 197 (2024).
  3. F. Vismarra, et al., “Few-femtosecond electron transfer dynamics in photoionized donor–π–acceptor molecules“, Nature Chemistry 16, 2017–2024(2024).


More informations available at:

http://www.attosecond.fisi.polimi.it/