A research team built a "simplified detector" that allowed them to measure the waveforms; the device paints a clear picture of the quick pulses that last only a few femtoseconds, a Max-Planck Institute news release reported.
This new method goes above and beyond modern gas-phase detectors. It is made of glass and measures "the flow of electric current between two electrodes that is generated when the electromagnetic field associated with the laser pulse impinges on the glass," the news release reported.
"The researchers can then deduce the precise waveform of the pulse from the properties of the induced current," the news release reported.
Looking at the high-amplitude oscillations allow researchers to determine the shape of the electromagnetic fields so they can be used to "probe ultrashort processes that occur at the level of molecules and atoms."
"Highly sensitive and reliable measurements of physical processes at the level of the microcosmos with the aid of single attosecond light flashes of known shape should become easier to perform because, thanks to the new glass-based phase detector, the source of the energy to drive them - the waveform of the laser pulses - can now be controlled much more easily than before," the news release reported.
