Pretty quick

Professor Frank Meyer zu Heringdorf’s group researches the emission of electrons from electron density waves, so-called surface plasmon polaritons within the DFG Collaborative Research Centre CRC 1242. By advancing the photoemission microscopy method, the researchers succeeded in reconstructing the electric fields of such plasmon waves with a nanometre resolution and a time resolution of one millionth of a billionth of a second in three dimensions.  The researchers used a first (pump) laser pulse to generated a plasmon wave on a nanostructured gold surface, which then moved across the surface at nearly the speed of light. A second (probe) laser pulse was used to image the plasmon wave in the microscope by means of nonlinear photoemission.

Ultra-fast phenomena in solid-state bodies and at surfaces

Professor Uwe Bovensiepen’s and Professor Klaus Sokolowski-Tinten’s research group focuses on the microscopic interaction mechanisms in play between electronic, magnetic and structural degrees of freedom in condensed matter. The group aims to gain an understanding of the energy exchange taking place between the individual sub-systems and the energy transport in nanoscale materials. Its members use measurement techniques with a high temporal and spatial resolution and a specific sensitivity for the individual degrees of freedom. The group’s research spans a wide range of questions: electron dynamics at icy surfaces, spin transport in thin magnetic layers, the non-equilibrium dynamics of photonic stimulation in heterostructures, and rapid changes of the lattice structure of phase-change materials, which constitute the basis of modern electronic storage systems.