Colloquia

From Extreme Nonlinear Optics to Ultrafast Atomic Physics

The interaction of atoms with intense laser radiation leads to the generation of high-order harmonics of the laser field, corresponding in the time domain, to light pulses with attosecond duration. After a first decade where attosecond pulses were measured and optimized, we begin to perform experiments where these pulses allow us to explore new physics. We will describe some of these applications, and in particular recent results concerning single and double photoionization dynamics.