Joachim Burgdörfer, Stefan Donsa and Iva Brezinova (c) TU Wien (c) TU Wien
A new measurement protocol, developed at TU Wien (Vienna), makes it possible to measure the quantum phase of electrons - an important step for attosecond physics. It is like a microscope for time: Today's methods of attosecond physic allows us to measure extremely short time intervals. With the help of short laser pulses, physical processes can be investigated on a time scale of attoseconds - that is billionths of a billionth of a second. For example, it is possible to study how a single atom is ionized and how an electron leaves the atom. The electron does not simply behave like a point-like particle, but its quantum-physical wave properties play an important role: the electron is actually an electron wave that oscillates on an extremely short time scale - and on a tiny length scale. It is a huge challenge to measure the cycle duration of such an oscillation, but it is even much more difficult to determine its phase: What exactly is the beat the electron oscillation follows' If an electron can be ionized in two different ways, will both electron waves oscillate in perfect unison, or will there be a small time delay (i.e. a phase shift)- A team from TU Wien (Vienna) and the CREOL College at the University of Central Florida has now theoretically designed a protocol that allows the measurement of the phase of such electron waves.
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