Research Interest

Our research is currently funded by King's College London NMES Faculty, The Royal Society & Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

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Ultrafast laser sciences:

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We develop state of art femtosecond ultra-short and intense lasers that are essential for driving strong field- matter interaction with unprecedented conditions. We are focusing our research into the development of high repetition rate Ytterbium CPA femtosecond laser that are now cutting edge technology. The CPA technology was recognised by the Nobel prize in Physics 2018 and is an important topic of advanced light technology. We are investigating innovative schemes to enable the production of complex femtosecond pulses that cover a large range of photon energy from IR to far IR and the synthetisation of new electromagnetic laser fields waveforms.

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Production, characterisation and control of attosecond pulses:

 

We currently produce the most advanced table-top source of XUV and X-ray coherent pulses. These pulses are the shortest ever produced (100 asec; 1 asec= 10-18 sec). Our research is focused on the production, characterisation and control of these attosecond pulses, taking advantage of high harmonic generation high non-linear phenomena. High harmonic generation is a process that enable the up conversion of the CPA femtosecond source to the XUV-X-ray range. In order to achieve the full capability of these sources, we combine our expertise of femtosecond laser technology and strong field physics to provide the optimum attosecond source. 

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Capturing ultra-fast dynamical process in atoms and molecules using attosecond pump-probe technique: 

 

Electronic and nuclear motions are extremely fast and trigger many photo-induced processes’ initial steps from few tens of attosecond to few femtosecond, such as damages in RNA basis, properties in chromophores, ultrafast current in nanoscale samples and dynamics at the quantum level. We have pioneered the “quantum path interferometry” technique that is an in situ pump-probe method enabling capture ultra-fast charge migration with temporal accuracy down to 10 attosecond. Our current research aims to extend this technique to larger molecular systems and to explore condensate phase material, i.e.  Periodic crystals, nanofilms and metamaterials.

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