Speaker: Prof. Andre Bandrauk, University of Sherbrooke

Title: Movie with lasers: Molecular optical visualization - imaging of electrons

Abstract: Studying and using light or 'photons' to image and then control and transmit molecular information is among the most challenging and significant research fields to emerge in recent years and appropriately called "Molecular Photonics". One of the latest growing areas involves research in the temporal imaging of quantum phenomena, ranging from molecular dynamics in the femto-time regime for atomic rearrangements to the attosecond time scale of electron motion. In fact the attosecond "revolution", the result of "evolution" of ultrafast laser technology, is now recognized as one of the most important breakthroughs and innovations in the science af the 21st century. A major participant in the development of ultrafast temporal imaging of quantum phenomena has been theory and numerical simulations of the nonlinear nonperturbative response of atoms and molecules to intense ultrashort (few cicles) laser pulses. These high level simulations on massively parallel supercomputers have led to the development and confirmation of simple models of electron control at high intensities, such as recollision, enhanced ionization and high order harmonic generation, the current source of attosecond pulse generation. These developments will lead to new research and teaching methods in molecular sciences, based on Molecular Movies.