Molecular applications of attosecond laser pulses

We review the present state of the application of attosecond lasers in molecular physics. Following the first synthesis and characterization of attosecond laser pulses a little more than a decade ago, the first applications in molecular physics have been published only in the last few years. These have yielded new insight into the coupling of multiple electronic degrees of freedom and that of electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom on the attosecond to few-femtosecond timescale. We review these first experiments as well as theoretical work that was carried out during the same period, and sketch some future molecular applications of attosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. (C) 2013 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.