Final Report Summary - ATTOCO (Attosecond tracing of collective dynamics in clusters and nanoparticles)
The ERC project ATTOCO has provided insight into the microcosm of electronic processes in nanostructures on timescales reaching into the attosecond domain (an attosecond is a billionth of a billionth of a second). Such high time resolution permits to unravel the complex interactions in many-electron systems such as nanoparticles and clusters. Within our project, we have pioneered the field of attosecond nanophysics and could demonstrate attosecond nanoscale field sampling, attosecond chronoscopy of electron scattering in dieelectrics, attosecond plasmonic streaking, reaction nanoscopy, and all-optical control of electron dynamics in nanoparticles and clusters. Outcomes from the project are metrologies and know-how that could help to develop petahertz opto-electronic devices, where the processing of information is pushed to its ultimate limit, the speed of light itself.