Chair for Laser Physics
Welcome to the website of the Chair for Laser Physics!
At the moment we work in three main branches of research that combine the topics of laser physics, quantum, electron, and nano optics, strong-field and attosecond physics, plasmonics and solid state research. We investigate the wave and particle properties of electrons in ultrafast processes in and at nano objects; we develop new particle traps to create quantum optical systems in order to build a quantum electron microscope; we use laser pulses at photonic nanostructures to look into novel concepts for particle acceleration.
The main part of our laboratory is centered around light-matter interaction on fastest time scales, namely the femtosecond and attosecond time scale (1 fs = 1 millionth of a billionth of a second, 1 as = 1 billionth of a billionth of a second). This allows us, to put it a bit more abstractly, to work towards understanding und utilizing photon-electron coupling in various systems. A part of this is based on highly advanced methods to control electrons, often with light fields, which requires building new laser sources and amplifiers.
This year's Röntgen Prize of the University of Giessen went to our former postdoc and current professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. Roy Shiloh. He received the 15,000 euro prize for his outstanding contributions to the realization of a photonic particle accelerator. As it was mentione...
This year we again retreated for two and a half days to be able to discuss our projects intensively on the basis of presentations - and to listen to four more excellent presentations by invited guests. This year's guests were Dr. Thilo Egenolf from Darmstadt, Prof. Christoph Lemell from Vienna, Prof...
Optical near-fields excited by ultra-short laser pulses in a silicon-based nanophotonic structure can accelerate free electrons. This is known as dielectric laser acceleration (DLA). This new method allows much higher acceleration gradients to be achieved in a smaller space compared to conventional ...
Dr. Tobias Weitz has just received the "Jury Prize for Fundamental Research in an Important Future Field of the Modern Information Society" for his dissertation "Lightwave electronics in graphene" at the Applied Photonics Awards 2023 in Jena - congratulations!
A main research focus at our chair is the investigation of light-matter interaction on metals on ultrafast time scales. For this purpose, we focus ultrashort laser pulses on metallic needle tips and investigate the emitted electrons. Important parameters of these tips are the work function, as well ...
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier - "for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”. Congratulations to the three, who of course absolutely deserve this award! It is and remai...
It is always helpful but often not at all easy to summarize the current state of a large field of research. It is even more difficult to predict where the journey may yet lead. Last year, the prestigious Wolf Prize was awarded to three pioneers of attosecond physics, and the three gave an interview ...
