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Fastest-Ever Flashgun Captures Image of Light Wave

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fastest-flash-in-the-west dept.

loconet writes to tell us that a team of researchers have created the shortest-ever flash of light. Weighing in at just 80 attoseconds, this flash has already been used to capture an image of a laser pulse and could possibly be used in the future to capture the electron movement around large atoms.

2 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds impossible by Carewolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Using light to take pictures of light in motion?

    This is either a hoax, or the the article is skipping some really important part.

  2. Re:Um... What? by barfy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thanks, but I think there is something I have hopelessly never figured out, and that something would also let me understand how reflection works. How does an atom know the direction that the photon was traveling and and what does it bump off of? And isn't the atom round, so how come reflection works like the atoms are a plane. And how does the atom know the relative position of the atoms around it, so that it can reflect the photon in the right direction?

    This is also the problem with lenses. How does the atom know the surface of the greater object, so that it knows what directions to send the photons that are passing through?

    I am sure if I understood this, it would make the underlying question here easier. But as many of these answers so far show, this is be far, not a trivial question.