(Featuring the shortest movies and the largest lasers)
Did you ever wonder what happens in the time period it takes light to cross the diameter of your hair? This is the femtosecond, a millionth of a billionth of a second. It is the time scale of electron and nuclear motion, and therefore the most fundamental processes in atomic and molecular physics, chemistry and biology start here. In order to take movies with femtosecond time resolution, we need ultrafast cameras – flashes of light that act faster than any camera shutter ever could. And imaging ultrafast motion is only the first step: We aim to control dynamics on the femtosecond time scale, ultimately driving chemical reactions with light.
