Generation of Attosecond Electron Bunches

Ultra-fast science is an important new research frontier that is driving the development of novel sources for generation of extremely short x-ray and electron pulses. Recent advances in femtosecond lasers have stimulated development of femtosecond x-ray sources that allow the study of matter at the time scale shorter than period of oscillations of atoms in molecules, ∼ 100 fs. The next breakthrough would be a source of electron pulses comparable with atomic periods ω−1 ∼ 100 attosecond (10−16 s), where ω is a transition frequency between atomic levels. This will open qualitatively new class of phenomena based on the interaction of atomic electrons in the medium with a collective electric field of electron pulses and not with their individual electrons. For example, one can expect coherent ionization losses that are proportional to a square number of electrons in the microbunch, phase synchronized excitation of medium followed by its relaxation with a radiation of a single-cycled optical pulse, excitation of entanglement states in the medium of atoms with few valence electrons, and possibly other new phenomena, yet to be identified. Simple estimation of coherent ionization losses shows that a 100 MeV, 100 attosecond electron pulse containing 10 electrons will lose its total energy after propagating only ∼ 200μm through liquid hydrogen. This is approximately 10 times shorter stoping range than it is for a long (on atomic scale) electron bunch.