News

Similar to surfers using the energy stored in sea waves to drive their motion towards the coast, elementary particles can surf a wave formed by tailored light fields. In a paper just published in Nature Physics, we have shown that the kinetic energy of electrons can be modulated on very short timescales by the interaction with an optical travelling wave.

“How fast can one turn on a current?” is a fundamentally important question behind boosting up the speed of modern electronics, since the data and signals are transferred via the flow of electrons. In joint work with the group of Prof. Heiko B. Weber of FAU's Applied Physics Chair, we have opened up a new channel for achieving ultrafast turning-on of currents in graphene, an exotic conducting material, on the timescale of a single femtosecond (1 femtosecond is a billionth of a millionth of a second).

Dr. Takuya Higuchi has received the best poster award at the Gordon Research Conference on Quantum Control of Light & Matter. The poster describes quantum mechanical interference effects of electrons in graphene, controlled by the fast oscillating field of ultrashort laser pulses. Congratulation...

We could theoretically and experimentally demonstrate an inelastic interaction between free electrons and an optical evanescent wave excited by total internal reflection at the planar interface between high-refractive index materials (silicon, germanium) and vacuum. This effect is interesting for bo...

One should think that the optical phase evolution of a common pulsed focused laser beam is known for a long time already -- that's not the case! Our lab in collaboration with colleagues around Prof. Gerhard Paulus's group in Jena has, for the first time, measured the phase in the focal area of such ...

The University of Erlangen promotes action against climate change by application of modern infrastructure based on renewable energies and zero emission mobility. At the chair of Laser Physics a roof top photovoltaics system was installed six years ago, making that location ideal to install charging ...

Manuscript on optical gating and streaking of electrons at sub-optical-cycle time scales published in Nature Communications Optical near-fields have recently been employed for both electron acceleration in so-called dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) and in energy-resolved electron microscopy ima...

New year starts with a new logo for the department of laser physics After a long and hard knock-out competition, our chair has finally got a logo. The winner of the logo competition is Dr. Takuya Higuchi -- congratulations and many thanks!

ACHIP collaboration meeting in Switzerland Hosted by Rasmus Ischebeck, PSI, the ACHIP collaboration gathered for a fruitful 2.5-day meeting near PSI in Switzerland. All members of our chair working on dielectric laser acceleration joined the meeting.