This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Recent progress in ultrafast laser technology has enabled new spectroscopies for probing matter in fundamentally new optical regimes with regard to frequency precision, temporal resolution, and in combination with novel nanooptical techniques, ultrahigh spatial resolution. So far, most efforts have concentrated on the visible spectral region with the infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) range having been taken comparatively little advantage of due to the lack of suitable laser sources with regard to pulse energy, tunability, spectral range, and control of the carrier-envelope phase (CEP).
The goal of this interdisciplinary project is the development of a new ultrafast infrared laser light source as the foundation of a broad scientific program aimed at testing basic symmetries and laws of physics using ultracold molecules, implementing fast quantum logic gates with trapped ions, developing new optical clocks, designing optical antennas for IR plasmonics, and at studying finite size effects in nanomaterials by spatio-temporal vibrational imaging.
Situated at the intersection of the scientific frontiers of atomic physics, nanoscience, and ultrafast spectroscopy, the highly interdisciplinary research enabled by this instrument provides a rich learning environment for graduate and undergraduate students. Technological applications that can be derived from this research include novel microscopy techniques, molecular sensors, and optical antennas.
