AFOSR making a difference in attosecond science and technology

By Dr. William P. Roach , AFOSR Chief Scientist, Dr. Connemara Doran , PhD, AFOSR Science Historian, and AFOSR Program Officers Dr. Michael R. Berman, Dr. Enrique Parra, and Dr. Andrew B. Stickrath

Over the past 73 years AFOSR , the basic research arm of the United States Department of the Air Force and a directorate within the Air Force Research Laboratory , accomplishes its mission through global investment in advanced discovery research efforts in relevant scientific areas.

Here is striking example of how the AFOSR basic research mission continues to make a difference.

The The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded The Nobel Prize in Physics October 4, 2023, to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.” (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/ ).

In total, AFOSR has contributed basic research funding to 84 Nobel laureates before they were given their Nobel awards, including support to Pierre Agostini and Ferenc Krausz. On average, these laureates receive AFOSR funding 17 years prior to winning their Nobel awards.

AFOSR interest in attosecond physics

Early AFOSR investments in ultrafast, attosecond chemistry and physics can be traced back to a 2004 MURI grant1. Given the growing interest in ultrafast and ultra intense laser-matter interactions from the scientific community, AFOSR decided, in 2011, to stand up the Ultrashort Pulse Laser Matter Interactions (UPLMI) portfolio. Such a portfolio would sit in the cross section of atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics and plasma physics. From its inception the UPLMI portfolio had one of its three sub-thrusts solely dedicated to resourcing attosecond physics.?

In April 2012, AFOSR held a workshop on “Attosecond Science and Engineering” at the University of Central Florida . The final workshop report, titled “Advanced Attosecond Science and Technology – The Second Decade Outlook”, would summarize the state-of-the-art in attosecond science and brainstorm future research directions. In late 2012, AFOSR collaborated closely with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) ’s Defense Sciences Office (DARPA DSO) to initiate the Program in Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering or PULSE program which had a high-power attosecond pulse development component. These grants would end up supporting the development of critical attosecond beamline capabilities at institutions within the United States.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2014, two United States Department of Defense (DoD) Multidisciplinary University Initiative (MURI) topics were issued by AFOSR and the U.S. Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory Office (ARO) on attosecond physics. The AFOSR MURI topic was titled “Time-resolved quantum dynamics of complex systems” and resulted in an award2 where one of the future 2023 Nobel Prize Physics winners, Dr. Pierre Agostini, served as the co-Principal Investigator. The ARO MURI topic was titled “Attosecond electron dynamics” which also resulted in an award3, and these MURI awards would be further augmented by two targeted AFOSR Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) grants4,5.

Given that much of the attosecond physics expertise resided overseas and the MURIs could only support U.S. institutions, AFOSR awarded two additional, but separate, five-year research grants to foreign institutions to work jointly with the U.S. teams6,7 in 2016. Here, another of the three 2023 Nobel Prize recipients in physics, Dr. Ferenc Krausz, was the Principal Investigator at the Max Planck Society Institute in Germany.? ?

AFOSR has continued to invest in the support of cutting-edge laser technology to enable attosecond science, including standing up two MURI programs to develop mid-infrared laser technology at 美国俄亥俄州立大学 (OSU) with Dr. Louis DiMauro , a collaborator of Pierre Agostini, in 20158, and at the University of Colorado / JILA 9 with Professor Margaret Murnane in 2016. ?The technology developed in these programs is critical for advancements in attosecond science while being broadly impactful across disciplines.?

Currently, AFOSR is exploring the potential for attosecond imaging with atomic resolution – pushing the fundamental spatial and temporal limits of electronic dynamics. The AFOSR Director’s Research Initiative (DRI) Award10 to Professor Mohammed Hassan at the University of Arizona Department of Physics in 2022 is helping develop attosecond scanning tunneling microscopy that will further enable materials science and biological imaging programs. The AFOSR DRI award is augmented by a DoD Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Institutions (HBCU/MI) Equipment/Instrumentation grant, where Professor Hassan was previously awarded an AFOSR Young Investigator Award11 (YIP), during which he demonstrated the first attosecond pulse in the visible spectrum. The attosecond technology developed in these programs is also enabling demonstrations of ultrafast optical switching and data encoding concepts for petahertz electronics and computing.

As one of the initial investors in the field of attosecond science, the AFOSR Ultrashort Pulse Laser-Matter Interactions Portfolio continues to support the field’s development with its dedicated sub-thrust in attosecond physics, including eight active efforts with Dr. Pierre Agostini working as a collaborator with AFOSR principal investigator Dr. Louis Dimauro in his laboratory at OSU. This includes ongoing efforts under development that include complimentary supporting technology. AFOSR continues to work closely in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) , the National Science Foundation (NSF) , and throughout the DoD to develop ancillary technologies and leverage partnership investments.? Current AFOSR thrusts include imaging, extension of attosecond science/probes to novel sensing modalities and nonlinear spectroscopies and to the solid state with the goal of establishing attosecond science as a capability for both United States Air Force and United States Space Force .?

Dimension Plots of funding/co-funding sources for Agostini and Krausz from 2014 - 2023.?

Note that AFOSR/Air Force is prominently featured for both – and that AFOSR is very collaborative.?

(Case Number: AFRL-2024-3255)

About AFOSR

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research , or AFOSR, expands the horizon of scientific knowledge through its leadership and management of the Department of the Air Force's basic research program. As a vital component of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), AFOSR's mission is to discover, shape, champion, and transition high risk basic research to profoundly impact the future Air and Space Force. AFOSR accomplishes its mission through global investment in advanced discovery research efforts in relevant scientific areas. Central to AFOSR's strategy is the transfer of the fruits of basic research to industry, the supplier of Department of the Air Force acquisitions; to the academic community, which can lead the way to still more accomplishment; and to the other directorates of AFRL that carry the responsibility for applied research leading to acquisition.

REFERENCES:

1. FA9550-04-1-0242, title: “Laser Instrumentation for Attosecond Experimentation”, PI: Dr. Stephen Leone, 2004 – 2009.

2. FA9550-15-1-0037, title: “Studying Ultrafast Electron Dynamics in Condensed Matter with Next Generation Attosecond X-ray Sources”, PI: Dr. zenghu chang , University of Central Florida, Co-PI: Dr. Pierre Agostini (2023 Physics Nobel Prize), The Ohio State University, 2014 – 2020.

3. W911NF-14-1-0383, title: “Post-Born-Oppenheimer Dynamics using Isolated Attosecond Pulses”, PI: Dr. Stephen Leone, 美国加州大学伯克利分校 .

4. FA9550-16-1-0281, title: “Millijoule Class Laser Upgrade for Attosecond Measurements of Band Gap Solids”, PI: Dr. Stephen Leone, 2016 – 2017.

5. FA9550-17-1-0499, title: “High Power Phase-Stabilized Few-Cycle Mid-IR Laser”, PI: Dr. Zenghu Chang, 2017 – 2019.

6. FA9550-16-1-0109, title: "Linking Attosecond Science in Solids and Gases" PI: ?Dr. PAUL CORKUM , National Research Council Canada / Conseil national de recherches Canada , 2016 – 2021.

7. ?FA9550-16-1-0073, title: “Advancing Attosecond Solid State Physics Towards Petahertz Electronics” PI: Dr. Ferenc Krausz (2023 Physics Nobel Prize), Max Planck Institute Germany, 2016 – 2020.

8. FA9550-16-1-0013, title: “Fundamental Strong-Field Interactions with Ultrafast, Mid-Infrared Lasers”, PI: Dr. Louis Dimauro, The Ohio State University, 2015 – 2021.

9. FA9550-16-1-0121, title: “Harnessing Strong-Field Mid-Infrared (IR) Lasers: Designer Beams of Relativistic Particles and THz-to-X-ray Light”, PI: Margaret Murnane, University of Colorado/JILA, 2016 – 2023.?

10. FA9550-22-1-0494, title: “Filming Electron Motion in Action” PI: Dr. Mohammed Hassan, University of Arizona, 2022.

11. FA9550-19-1-0025, title: “Imaging the Ultrafast Dynamics in 2D Graphene”, University of Arizona, 2018 – 2022.

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