This controlled light force enables us to reproducibly generate and measure isolated attosecond pulses of extreme ultraviolet and soft-X-ray light. They generate light waves and constitute our key tools for lightwave electronics, which allows us to drive and measure electronic current on the atomic scale just as microwave electronics does in nanoscale circuitry. Real-time observation of the electrons’ quantum transitions deep inside atoms, their escape via tunneling, their motion in the valence band and their transport in solids demonstrate the power of the new technology. Steering and probing the motion of low-energy electrons bound to atoms, molecules or solid-state structures will allow researchers to explore and use electron phenomena in physics, chemistry and biology, understand and manipulate molecular structure, shed light on the origin and transmission of biological information and advance electronics to its ultimate speed limit.

At high intensities the attosecond light force can liberate electrons from their atomic binding and accelerate them to velocities approaching the speed of light within a single light oscillation period opening the door to high-field attosecond science. We aim at using this ultrastrong controlled force for precise steering of high-energy electrons for the generation of attosecond electron and hard-X-ray pulses and for the development of compact, brilliant particle and X-ray sources. High-energy attosecond sources will extend the capability of Attosecond Science to probing electron dynamics near the atomic core and to four-dimensional imaging of the electronic structure of matter with attosecond temporal and picometre spatial resolution. Brilliant laboratory-scale X-ray and particle sources hold promise for revolutionizing cancer diagnosis and therapy.