Motion of two electrons in helium atom can be imaged and controlled with attosecond-timed laser flashes
Physicists are continuously advancing the control they can exert over matter. A German-Spanish team working with researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg has now become the first to image the motion of the two electrons in a helium atom and even to control this electronic partner dance. The scientists are succeeding in this task with the aid of different laser pulses which they timed very accurately with respect to each other. They employed a combination of visible flashes of light and extreme-ultraviolet pulses which lasted only a few hundred attoseconds. One attosecond corresponds to a billionth of a billionth of a second. Physicists aim to specifically influence the motion of electron pairs because they want to revolutionise chemistry: If lasers can steer the paired bonding electrons in molecules, they could possibly produce substances which cannot be produced using conventional chemical means.