How science of tiny timescales could speed up computers and improve solar cell technology

Attosecond science, the laser-led study of what happens to matter over very short timescales, could lead to major advances in our understanding of nature’s fastest processes. Attosecond science – the subject of the 2023 Nobel prize in physics – involves using such almost unimaginably short, intense pulses of laser light to transfer lots of energy to a “target” material. These extremely short attosecond pulses also carry more energy – especially when generated using a free-electron laser, which can reach electrons deep inside the cores of atoms that were previously inaccessible. But the light-induced processes and extremely short timescales in attosecond science could give us other options for achieving better control over the qubits in a quantum computer.