The world's first 5-femtosecond multi-Gigawatt Ti:sapphire laser system. Photonics Institute, Vienna University of Technology, 1997.

The world's first laboratory source of coherent X-rays in the water window (270-550 eV; 2.3-4.4 nm) produced by irradiating helium atoms with 0.3-millijoule, 5-femtosecond near-infrared (750-nm) pulses from a Ti:sapphire laser. The purple fluorescence emission originates from ionized high-density helium gas streaming out of a thin metal tube through holes bored by the focused laser beam. The X-ray harmonics are emitted coherently in a well collimated beam collinear to the laser beam, which propagates along the axis of the purple emission. Photonics Institute, Vienna University of Technology, 1997. Photo courtesy of Dr. Gabriel Tempea.

The world's first source of light pulses shorter than one femtosecond, generated by exposing neon atoms to 0.3-millijoule, 5-femtosecond, near-infared laser pulses. The fluorescence emission originates from ionizing neon atoms streaming from the interaction volume (thin metal tube). Photonics Institute, Vienna University of Technology, courtesy of Dr. Gabriel Tempea.
The movie shows the vacuum beamline used for generating and measuring the sub-femtosecond pulses along with the 5-fs laser system constituting the pump source, courtesy of Dr. Matthias Schnürer.

The world's first coherent source of kiloelectronvolt radiation (wavelength ~ 1 nm). The coherent X-rays are produced by irradiating helium atoms with 1-millijoule, 5-femtosecond near-infrared (750-nm) pulses from a Ti:sapphire laser. The purple fluorescence emission originates from ionized high-density helium gas streaming out of a thin metal tube through holes bored by the focused laser beam. The X-ray harmonics are emitted coherently in a well collimated beam collinear to the laser beam, which propagates along the axis of the purple emission. Photonics Institute, Vienna University of Technology, 2003. Courtesy of Dr. Jozsef Seres.

The world's first source of intense waveform-controlled laser light generates 0.3-mJ, 5-fs laser pulses in the near infrared (wavelength ~ 750 nm) with a controlled evolution of the several oscillations of the electric and magnetic fields.

A sequence of ultrabroad-band chirped multilayer dielectric mirrors compress pulses of visible laser light for the first time to a duration below 4 femtoseconds. The spectrum of the radiation extends from less than 550 nm to more than 1100 nm. It is produced by self-phase modulation in a short piece (~ 4 mm) of single-mode optical fiber fed by a sub-10-fs Ti:sapphire oscillator. Photonics Institute, Vienna University of Technology, 2003. Courtesy of Dr. Alexander Apolonsky.

First real-time observation of the motion of electrons deep in the interior of an excited atom. Copyright: The New York Times.

First-generation attosecond beamline (AS-0) used for the generation and measurement of sub-femtosecond pulses. The system was originally developed at the Photonics Institute of the Vienna University of Technology (1999-2001) and rebuilt at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in 2003-2004.

Enabling technology for producing intense few-cycle laser pulses: broadband visible-infrared laser pulses are compressed to 5 femtoseconds upon being reflected off several specially-designed chirped multilayer dielectric mirrors. Separation of the individual frequency components of the broadband radiation reveals that colours all the way from the blue to the infrared with precise timing (ensured by the chirped mirrors) are required to create a sub-5-fs pulse.

Proprietary chirped-pulse oscillator (CPO) technology allows the production of microjoule-scale sub-100-fs pulses at a repetition rate of several Megahertz from Ti:sapphire oscillators. Femtosecond CPO sources permit nanometre-precision machining of dielectrics both on the surface and within the bulk.