Making a Beamline for Deep UV Spectroscopy

U ltrafast spectroscopy offers a way to capture the light-response of an object at the speed that its atoms and electrons move. The most effective techniques make use of light in the optical and extreme UV bands, where ultrashort pulses are easiest to produce. Now a team has developed a technique that uses a miniature beamline to deliver pulses in the “deep-UV” range [1]. As demonstrated in experiments with diamond, the new spectroscopic method can reveal ultrafast behavior in dielectric materials, which are being considered for future high-speed electronics applications.