Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Twenty-five years have passed since the first experimental demonstration of attosecond pulses, marking the advent of our ability to resolve and control electron motion in real time. What began as a technological breakthrough - generating the shortest flashes ever produced - has evolved into a powerful approach for probing and steering electronic dynamics in atoms, molecules, and solids. This roadmap, authored by leading experts in the field, surveys the recent rapid progress in the generation and characterization of attosecond pulses, emerging attosecond measurement and control techniques, and their expanding range of applications. It reviews current and future developments in attosecond light sources, including novel laser technologies, waveform synthesizers, new schemes for high-order harmonic generation, attosecond pulse generation at free-electron lasers, and structured light. Advances in attosecond measurement methodologies are also discussed, encompassing all-attosecond pump-probe spectroscopy, attosecond four-wave mixing, attosecond microscopy, spectroscopy with light transients, and attosecond interferometry. Furthermore, the roadmap addresses applications of attosecond spectroscopy to reveal electron dynamics in molecules and condensed matter systems from both theoretical and experimental perspectives, and highlights emerging directions at the interface with quantum optics and quantum entanglement. Overall, this work aims to serve as a comprehensive resource for navigating the evolving landscape of attosecond science.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Varillas, Rocio Borrego, Agostini, Pierre, Ardana-Lamas, Fernando, Arnold, Cord L., Ayuso, David, Reduzzi, Maurizio, Benda, Jakub, Biegert, Jens, Bourassin-Bouchet, Charles, Brabec, Thomas, Brahms, Christian, Brown, Andrew C., Busto, David, Caillat, Jérémie, Calegari, Francesca, Callegari, Carlo, Carlström, Stefanos, Chang, Zenghu, Chen, Ming-Chang, Ciriolo, Anna G., Corkum, Paul, Crippa, Gabriele, Garcia, Rafael de Q., DiMauro, Louis, Dudovich, Nirit, Eng-Johnsson, Per, Faccialà, Davide, Flores, Philip, Gadeyne, Titouan, Geloni, Gianluca Aldo, Geirger, Chase, Gholam-Mirzaei, Shima, Gorfinkiel, Jimena D., Goulielmakis, Eleftherios, Hassan, Mohammed, Hernández-García, Carlos, Ho, Phay, Hui, Dandan, Hutcheson, Lynda R., Ivanov, Misha, Kahaly, Subhendu, Kapteyn, Henry, Karpowicz, Nicholas, Kärtner, Franz X., Kling, Matthias, Kneller, Omer, Ko, Dong Hyuk, Kraus, Peter M., Kubullek, Maximilian, Leone, Stephen R., Lépine, Franck, L'Huillier, Anne, Liao, Chen-Ting, Linker, Thomas, Lohr, Alexander Gabriel, Lucchini, Matteo, Madsen, Lars Bojer, Mainz, Roland E., Major, Balázs, Marangos, Jon P., Marco, David, Marroux, Hugo, Marshallsay, Sean, Vázquez, Rebeca Martínez, Martín-Hernández, Rodrigo, Mašín, Zdeněk, Meyer, Michael, Moreno, Felipe Morales, Murnane, Margaret, Neumark, Daniel M., Nisoli, Mauro, Ossiander, Marcus, Palakka, Sreelakshmi, Patchkovskii, Serguei, Pi, Zekun, Plaja, Luis, Poborska, Julita, Porras, Miguel A., Prince, Kevin C., Purschke, David N., Puskar, Nicolette G., Rossi, Giulio Maria, Rouxel, Jérémy R., Ruchon, Thierry, Rupprecht, Patrick, Salières, Pascal, Sansone, Giuseppe, Scheiba, Fabian, Schultze, Martin, Schütte, Bernd, Serkez, Svitozar, Silva-Toledo, Miguel A., Smirnova, Olga, Stagira, Salvatore, Trabattoni, Andrea, Travers, John C., Tyulnev, Igor, Vacher, Morgane, Vampa, Giulio, van der Hart, Hugo W., Varjú, Katalin, Viotti, Anne-Lise, Vishnoi, Vartika, Vrakking, Marc, Wanie, Vincent, Witte, Stefan, Xu, Fei, Yakovlev, Vladislav S., Young, Linda, Zhu, Diling, Vozzi, Caterina
Institutions: Imperial College London, Politecnico di Milano, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris-Saclay, Laboratoire Charles Fabry, University of Ottawa, Heriot-Watt University, Queen's University Belfast, Lund University, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Sorbonne Université, Laboratoire de Chimie Physique - Matière et Rayonnement, Universität Hamburg, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg Institut (Germany), Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A., Max-Born-Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy, National Tsing Hua University, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Aarhus University
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Centres de Recerca de Catalunya, Department for the Economy, Government of Canada, Royal Academy of Engineering, European Commission, Minerva Foundation, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Stiftelsen för Strategisk Forskning, Grantová Agentura České Republiky, Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research, Canada Excellence Research Chairs, Government of Canada, Generalitat de Catalunya, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, Novo Nordisk, Vetenskapsrådet, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Council for Higher Education, Universität Hamburg, Junta de Castilla y León, National Science and Technology Council, Office of Science, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Leibniz-Gemeinschaft, European Regional Development Fund, Wallenberg Centre for Molecular and Translational Medicine, Wallenberg Center for Quantum Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, Basic Energy Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, H2020 European Research Council, HORIZON EUROPE European Research Council
Awards: PDT to meet the challenge of treating pancreatic cancer, Ultrafast dynamics in intermolecular energy transfer: elementary processes in aerosols and liquid chemistry, Seeing the invisible: Light-based 3D imaging of opaque nanostructures, NONPERTURBATIVE LASER-ATOM INTERACTIONS FOR EXTREME NONLINEAR OPTICS BOULD, G195474297, G222768804, Ultrafast Picoscopy of Solids, Electron-Positron Attosecond Dynamics in exotic systems: Probing correlated matter-antimatter dynamics in real-time, G2975900969, G3085453996, G3542716719, G3572460945, G3770966485, New trends in attosecond science, Ultrafast molecular chirality: twisting light to twist electrons on ultrafast time scale, Collaborative Research: Attosecond Electron Dynamics in Polyatomic Molecules Probed by Water Window X-Rays, G5648016710, Deciphering coherence in attosecond photoionization, Ultrafast optical technologies at high repetition rates, Fundamental aspects of ultrafast dynamics in complex molecular ions excited by an ultrashort XUV pulse: experiment and theory, MOLECULAR DYNAMICS PROBED BY COHERENT ELECTRON AND X-RAYS, Attosecond electron-nuclear dynamics studied using intense XUV and X-ray laser pulses, High repetition rate and high photon energy attosecond pulse sources for time-resolved spectroscopy and imaging, Expérimentation recherche à risque CEA, G988628021
OpenAlex ID: W7154698020
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