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Please circulate this call to potential applicants that you may know about.
The application deadline is April 18

Meeting: Nice 2017

MEDEA Summer School: Technology & Innovation Management

Light pulses are electromagnetic wave, which are fully described by the evolution in space and time of two vectors: the electric and the magnetic field. During the propagation of a light pulse, these vectors can describe very complex trajectories (for example they can rotate along a circle or describe an ellipse or any mixed combination), which correspond to different polarization states of the radiation. The polarization of an electromagnetic pulse is a key parameter in the light–matter interaction, as it determines the characteristics, for example, of the electrons emitted from atoms, molecules, or solid samples. Observing the “dance” of the electric and magnetic fields is extremely challenging as their motion occurs on the timescale of a few hundreds of attoseconds (1as =10-18 s), which is much faster than any conventional electronic or opto-electronic instrument.
Exploiting a novel approach based on the spatial interference of two isolated attosecond pulses, an international team led by Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Sansone has achieved a full characterization of weak light pulses characterized by a complex evolution of the electric field (as shown in figure).
Attosecond technology is an extremely innovative and powerful tool for the control electronic dynamics and reactions occurring in all states of matter. Using these novel tools, we have generated electronic wave packets lasting only a few hundreds of attoseconds. During their motion electrons are extremely sensitive to external perturbations, and we have exploited this characteristic to gently modify their trajectories using weak visible light pulses. Finally, we have measured the distortions of the electron trajectory, deriving the intensity and the direction of the weak perturbation.
This novel technique offers for the first time the possibility to fully characterize extremely weak visible radiation with a generic polarization state, thus extending visible metrology to a large range of applications. For example, in the future, using our approach, it will be possible to gain complete access to the electronic motion occurring in solids, by measuring the visible light reflected from its surface.
Researchers from the University of Jena, Max-Planck Institute for nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, PTB in Braunschweig, Politecnico Milano, and IFN-CNR in Padua, significantly contributed to these results.

Original publication:
P. A. Carpeggiani et al. (2017): Vectorial optical field reconstruction by attosecond spatial interferometry.
In: Nature Photonics. DOI 10.1038/nphoton.2017.73

Actually the young researchers of the MEDEA Network are composed by 27 % of women researchers. Here the experience of some of them:

Anna GOLINELLI

Amplitude Technologhies

“The Medea project matches my strong interest in Science and gives me the possibility to integrate my scientific knowledge in the industrial field and to approach the research to our day-life needs. I think achieving successful results in industrial research can boost my professional growth”.

Christina ALEXANDRIDI 

Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives

“Every day I am dealing with interesting challenges, especially when working in a laboratory one has to think of many different parameters in order to make an experiment work.  The biggest advantage for me is the fact that you learn something new everyday. Working in physics gives me also the opportunity to investigate a domain that I love and be in the frontier of knowledge.”

 

Melby JOHNY

Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron

“After master’s programme, I was searching for a platform to learn Attosecond Physics and perform electrondynamics measurements on amino-acids which ended up in website of MEDEA network. I was fascinated by work packages of network, looking forward to collective research efforts of ESR’s and pioneer scientists in the field. The quote in the job advertisement that application from female candidates are strongly encouraged was impressive from a applicant’s point of view at that time and now I am really happy as part of MEDEA.”

Meeting: Aarhus 2017