For the first time, researchers have been able to follow "live" how the electronic states inside a molecule change, which are ionized by a strong laser field. When ionizing, an electron escapes from the molecule and in the remaining ion the electronic states must rearrange. This happens in unimaginably short time scales - the attosecond. Researchers around Dr. Olga Smirnova from the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy and the National Research Council of Canada were able to record these processes with the help of the so-called "High Harmonic Generation Spectroscopy". Their results were published in the current issue of Nature (22.07.2009) doi: 10.1038 / nature08253.
More information: Press release Forschungsverbund