Probing the fastest
ABSTRACT :
Rapidity is one of the basic essence of conventional human nature. This urge to become faster has driven technological innovations and the quest to observe the fastest has driven scientific developments culminating in picosecond (1ps=10^-12 s), femtosecond (1fs=10^-15 s) and attosecond ((1as=10^-18 s)) metrology tools. In this seminar I would discuss different aspects of the state of the art in the field of physics and some of the subsequent interdisciplinary applications. This would include different possibilities that open up when ultrafast lasers act on matter to launch electron dynamics that can change the nature of the driving electromagnetic fields themselves.