UCF has just broken the world’s shortest laster pulse and might be on track to help scientists  watch quantum mechanics in action…

Here is an excerpt from UCFTODAY …

A University of Central Florida research team has created the world’s shortest laser pulse and in the process may have given scientists a new tool to watch quantum mechanics in action – something that has been hidden from view until now.

UCF Professor Zenghu Chang from the Department of Physics and the College of Optics and Photonics, led the effort that generated a 67-attosecond pulse of extreme ultraviolet light. The results of his research are published online under Early Posting in the journal Optics Letters.

 An attosecond is an incomprehensible quintillionith of a second.  In other words it would take 15 million billion pulses of the size Chang’s team achieved to equal one second. The accomplishment is even more remarkable because the team did it without the use of specialized equipment including a mile-long particle accelerator or a Superdome-sized synchrotron.

“Dr. Chang’s success in making ever-shorter light pulses helps open a new door to a previously hidden world, where we can watch electrons move in atoms and molecules, and follow chemical reactions as they take place,” said Michael Johnson, the dean of the UCF College of Sciences and a physicist.  “It is astounding to imagine that we may now be able to watch quantum mechanics in process.”

The full article can be found here http://today.ucf.edu/ucf-researchers-record-world-record-laser-pulse/