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Technology for measuring time with an accuracy of up to zeptoseconds

02.01.2023

How fast do electrons move between atoms within the same molecule? Most often, they require only a few attoseconds (10^-18 seconds or a millionth of a billionth of a second). Keeping track of such fast processes is challenging, and a team of Australian scientists recently developed a new interference technology capable of measuring time delays with zeptosecond (10^-21 seconds, or trillionth of a billionth of a second) resolution.

As a test, this technology was used to measure the delay between two pulses of light emitted by different hydrogen isotopes, normal hydrogen (H2) and deuterium (D2), which were simultaneously exposed to a single pulse of laser light. The measured delay was less than three attoseconds, and its cause is the difference in the dynamics of motion of lighter and heavier nuclei of hydrogen isotope atoms.

Light was emitted by hydrogen atoms through a process called high harmonic generation (HHG). This process occurs when an electron is knocked out of an atom by a powerful stream of light, which also accelerates the electron to a higher energy (speed). When the electron returns to the "bosom" of the atom, a quantum of hard ultraviolet light (extreme ultraviolet, XUV) is emitted. The frequency, intensity and phase of the secondary radiation strongly depend on the parameters of the wave functions, so all atoms and molecules emit hard ultraviolet with their own unique parameters.

If the spectral intensity of the secondary radiation is measured quite simply, then the measurement of its phase is a much more complex problem, which is beyond the power of traditional spectrometers.

To solve this problem, scientists took advantage of a phenomenon called the Gouy phase. The measurement of the Gouy phase shift of light quanta from hydrogen and deuterium is equivalent in this case to the measurement of the time delay, and the experiments performed have shown that this value is quite stable and slightly less than 3 attoseconds. The work of Australian scientists was tested for "scientific purity" by a group of theoretical physicists from Shanghai University. Chinese scientists modeled all possible variants of generating HHG radiation from two hydrogen isotopes, taking into account all possible combinations of the motion of nuclei and electrons.

The obtained simulation results match the experimental data very well, and this suggests that in the future this technology can be used to study and measure ultrafast processes in atoms and molecules with unprecedented time resolution.

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