Ultrafast Picoscopy of Solids

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Material science, quantum chemistry, electrical and quantum engineering in the 21st century focus on manipulating and harnessing the properties of matter at the level of atoms and electrons. Advancing these technological capabilities to their ultimate limit calls for novel imaging techniques that can allow us to peer into matter at the level of valence electrons and follow their dynamics in space (tens of picometers) and time (femtosecond to attoseconds). Here we propose the development and use of ultrafast picoscopy to attain this grand goal of ultrafast and microscopy sciences. Intense laser fields can drive the coherent motion of electrons inside crystals to emit high harmonics of the fundamental whose spectral characteristics embody critical information about the spatial arrangement of electrons and atoms in the sub-angstrom scale. By combining this capability with state-of-the-art laser pulses whose field waveform is confined to a fraction of a femtosecond (optical attosecond pulses), it should be possible to record movies of electrons in solids in picometer space and attosecond time scales. Ultrafast picoscopy aims at enabling the three-dimensional visualization of the chemical bond in condensed matter, the detailed visualization of structural changes in crystalline materials and the real-time tracking of atomic and electron motion in ordinary and correlated materials. We anticipate the technique and the results of this endeavour to yield benefits to a broad range of scientific disciplines ranging from physics and quantum chemistry to material science and information technology.