Tweet

RealScientists Nano | Cornelia

14 Nov, 10 tweets, 4 min read

Hi everyone :-D
We have reached the weekend already. Over the last few days, I hope I managed to give you a small glimpse into my research field. But one promise I have not yet delivered on: Where will all of this lead? What's the point?

First of all, I don't think I have to convince you that the quantum tunnelling phenomenon is found in all kinds of fields. Recently I came across a paper discussing tunnelling times during a photosynthesis cycle in an organic molecule.
doi.org/10.1007/s13538…

Many might be familiar with Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (STM) technique to investigate surface structures with (sub-)atomic spatial resolution (or make an atomic stop-motion movie 😄)

And an example of future innovation development is in transistors for electronics, where quantum tunnel leaking is currently presenting a limit on the miniaturization, and dedicated quantum transistors could present a new breakthrough. spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors…

There are of course many more fields and technologies. For any of them, new insights gained from #attoscience about the quantum tunnelling process itself can deliver new puzzle pieces.

Another aspect: we study electron motion. And understanding charge transport (usually electrons moving from one place to another) at the microscopic level for example in heterojunctions of photovoltaic cells allow a possible new pathway of trying to improve their efficiency.

More and more aims move from "observing" to "controlling" electron dynamics with tailored fields. This invites dreams and hopes of controlling electron dynamics for example during chemical reactions, taking femtochemistry (dynamics of nuclei) to the next level.

Obviously, there are also more applications within #attoscience itself, where we're using the photoelectrons or emitted radiation as a secondary tool to investigate for example dynamics in molecular orbitals, and more. Some of the applications I have listed above are ongoing

https://twitter.com/NobelPrize/status/1047061973966512130

already, others are still hopes, dreams and ideas. A lot of work still remains to be done, both by the attoscience community and also all related fields. After all, we're still a very young, exciting and growing field 😉

https://twitter.com/NobelPrize/status/1047061973966512130

@coenneli

(thread by @coenneli)

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @RealSci_Nano

RealScientists Nano | Cornelia

@RealSci_Nano

15 Nov

Laser Quiz part 2: here come the solutions:

1. LASER = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (a)
2. Electron
3. Excited state atom
4. A Photon (I don't think there is a lasing material capable of producing gamma range photons)
5. Diffuse
6. Population Inversion

7. 3 Levels (with just 2 levels, as one approaches population equality, stimulated emission and absorption would start balancing each other out, preventing population inversion and thus there is no amplification of the light)
8. b) The energy gap between excited and ground state

Read 7 tweets

RealScientists Nano | Cornelia

@RealSci_Nano

15 Nov

Happy Sunday everyone!
It has been an adventurous week (in many ways 😁).
I recently came across this fun little #laser quiz and thought that would be a nice conclusion to my week here. So take a guess and play along 🤗

1. What does LASER stand for?
a) Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
b) Light Absorption by Simulated Emission of Radiation
c) Latent Absorption of Specified Elliptical Radons
d) Latent Amplification of Stimulated and Elliptical Radons

2. What particle plays the major role in the process of lasing?

Read 15 tweets

RealScientists Nano | Cornelia

@RealSci_Nano

13 Nov

Hello again!

I have this itch to swing back to talking about physics after yesterdays more meta thread, much like a pendulum always striving towards the middle position, but constantly overshooting. BTW, pendulums are an excellent representation of how short laser pulses are created!

You have probably heard (or learned) that laser light has a very defined colour (one specific wavelength/frequency), and all photons are in phase with each other, all their waves are perfectly synchronised (coherent).
(Image source: miridiatech.com/news/2014/02/l…)

Read 16 tweets

RealScientists Nano | Cornelia

@RealSci_Nano

12 Nov

It is evening again, and I finally find a moment to check in here. How are you doing?

I feel like my apartment has turned into a bit of a "sauna for beginners": higher room temperature than I would usually keep in wintertime, and more humid than usual in general (despite having open windows)...

I'm going to switch my plan around a bit. The exciting opportunities for future scientific and technological developments derived from #attoscience (and if I find the time, a project using nano-objects to modify the spatial dependence of my laser fields) will come later.

Read 19 tweets

RealScientists Nano | Cornelia

@RealSci_Nano

11 Nov

Good evening! While my fan heater is doing its job, why don't we catch some electrons?

https://twitter.com/RealSci_Nano/status/1326189495805505536?s=20

In yesterday's thread, the electrons which have been freed from their bound state by the laser mostly just oscillated around (steered by the electric field) and eventually flew off and away (until they hit a detector).

https://twitter.com/RealSci_Nano/status/1326189495805505536?s=20

However, not all electrons are so lucky. For some of them, their trajectory ends up looking almost like that lasso up there. This is if their kinetic energy at the end of the laser pulse is not quite enough to escape from the Coulomb potential of the atom/ion.

Read 11 tweets

RealScientists Nano | Cornelia

@RealSci_Nano

10 Nov

Hello everyone!
To talk about my research, I decided to theme it by "studying the ionisation process itself" (today) and "possible things that can happen afterwards" (tomorrow).

I'm going to keep the explanations in the threads fairly colloquial. But I will link the corresponding publications (open access whenever possible) so you can dig into the details there if you wish. Or of course, just ask me any questions you might have and I'll expand on that 😉

Yesterday I have already introduced the idea that the strong electric field of the laser pulse modifies the Coulomb potential which keeps electrons in bound states. The video shows a classical picture of this: