Looking back on about 30y of femtosecond optics and spectroscopy, I would like to start a discussion on which achievements active researchers today consider as, e.g. most valuable, as a break-through, most visionary etc. To be specific, I'm not looking for top-ranked papers but a more general idea/concept/invention/technique/method that has in your opinion revolutionalized the field, has paved the way for succeeding studies and/or has been picked up by other branches / has inspired researchers in other fields such as biology, chemistry or even industry.
pulse shaping for coherent control has opened up new ways to study fundamental chemistry
I'd like to add three of my favorites:
1) ultrafast spectroscopy and coherent control of single molecules. This goes hand in hand with the already mentioned pulse-shaping techniques, ultrafast nanoscopy and in-depth characterization of ultrafast pulses. I'm still amazed by the fact that it is possible to detect and manipulate the optical response of single particles and to compare the result to theoretical predictions.
2) 4D ultrafast electron microscopy. It extends the concept of ultrashort pulse generation to electrons and opens up completely new insights into structure and dynamics of matter under various physical and chemical conditions, for instance phase transitions, particles in optical near fields or spatially-corellated systems.
3) although already fairly old and not very surprising, starting out from the photon-echo experiments, I still consider the development of multi-dimensional optical spectroscopy as ground-breaking. Clear visualization of chemical bond transformation, energy transfer between molecules and relation to chemical structure is in my opinion a very important development that still holds great potential for instance in medical research and energy related science.
Trying to provide objective answer to this subjective question,
From the noble prize prespective, the frequency comb is a very powerful and important tool
From applied science point of view, the abitility to ablate matter without collateral damage might be the most significant achievement
In the scope of this discussion, I would like to ask for some good literature (papers, chapters) dealing with the basics of spectroscopy in a comprehensive way and its techniques (times, frequency domain). Thank you !
1). In nanosecond laser spectroscopy the major effect in reproducibility is thermal effects due to their long pulse and this effect increases with increasing incident power. For multi-photon spectroscopy it is needed high power with mere thermal effects and for this femto-second multi-photon spectroscopy is best one
2). Another great achievement from femto-second spectroscopy is supercontinum generation by self-phase modulation and stimulated nonlinear scattering etc.
3). The ultra-short nature of femto-second allows us study the spectroscopic properties of materials which we cannot do by long pulse excitation.
4). Time resolved spectroscopy and transient spectroscopy and saturable spectroscopy can be done very well by femto second lasers.
5). By combination of femto and nano lasers we can segregate the nonlinearities due to excitons, free carriers and thermal energy etc.
Book: Demtroder W. “Laser spectroscopy: basic concepts and instrumentation”
To add to what has been already said....Femtosecond lasers allowed us to see bond making and bond breaking events (Prof. Zewail's nobel prize winning work), solvation dynamics, electron transfer events etc.
I'll chime in to note that ultrafast spectroscopy has changed immensely over the past 30 years in part due to the spectacular development of ultrasfast laser sources. It's odd to think that chirped pulse amplification, for example, had only just been published for the first time 30 years ago! Consider also the magnificent changes in ultrafast fiber lasers, OPA/OPCPA systems, photonic crystal fibers, free-electron lasers, semiconductor lasers, crystal growth technology, dispersion management (chirped mirrors, AOPDF), carrier-envelope phase control... the list could go on. These developments have truly shaped the landscape of ultrafast spectroscopy as we know it.
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