Scientists have just generated the world’s fastest laser light pulse, a beam that shoots for 67 attoseconds, or 0.000000000000000067 seconds. Such a quick burst is useful for allowing scientists to view extremely fast quantum mechanical processes, such as movement of electrons during chemical reactions. According to Wired magazine:
To achieve their record-setting blast, the researchers sent pulses from a titanium-sapphire near-infrared laser through a system known as double optical gating, or DOG. This gate concentrates the energy of extreme ultraviolet light pulses and focuses them on a cell filled with neon gas.
Faster laser light pulses allow scientists to previously hidden subatomic processes and scientists are continuing to work on even faster laser light pulse generation.
