Light at the extremes: From femto- to atto-science for real-time studies of atomic and electronic motions

The progress in the generation of ultrashort pulses has continuously triggered the introduction of new spectroscopic and measurement techniques which offer the opportunity to investigate unexplored research areas with unprecedented time resolution. Few-optical cycle pulses tunable from near-infrared to visible-UV allow to shed light on ultrafast electronic relaxation processes and to achieve real-time detection of molecular vibrations and structural dynamics. High-energy few-optical cycle pulses allow the efficient production of high-order harmonics up to XUV spectral region, leading to the generation of attosecond pulses shedding light on electron wave packet dynamics in complex molecules. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2015