Ultrafast phase-stabilized optical pulses add temporal resolution to high spatial resolution The ultimate goal of any nanotechnology is to resolve and control elementary processes in matter. In general, although many spectroscopies can achieve high temporal resolution and many microscopies can achieve high spatial resolution, achieving both is difficult. On page 411 of this issue, Garg and Kern (1) improve the limits of concomitant spatial and temporal resolutions by combining scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) (2) with an ingenious phase-locking train of ultrafast optical pulses. The authors go on to demonstrate that their instrument can deconvolve femtosecond electron dynamics with nanoscale resolution. These feats are only made more interesting because the phase-locking scheme enables an imprint of the laser's (coherent) phase onto the tunneling electrons. This demonstration of “light-wave electronics” at atomic scales is unprecedented.

中文翻译：

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相干扫描隧道显微镜

超快相位稳定光脉冲为高空间分辨率增加了时间分辨率任何纳米技术的最终目标都是解决和控制物质中的基本过程。一般来说，虽然很多光谱仪可以实现高时间分辨率，很多显微镜可以实现高空间分辨率，但两者兼而有之是困难的。在本期第 411 页上，Garg 和 Kern (1) 通过将扫描隧道显微镜 (STM) (2) 与超快光脉冲的巧妙锁相序列相结合，改善了伴随空间和时间分辨率的限制。作者继续证明他们的仪器可以以纳米级分辨率对飞秒电子动力学进行去卷积。这些壮举只会变得更有趣，因为锁相方案能够在激光上留下印记” s（相干）相位到隧道电子上。这种原子尺度的“光波电子学”演示是前所未有的。