I am a Physics & Maths lecturer and researcher. For the past 10 years, I worked in the field of

Attosecond Strong-Field Electron Dynamics in Atomic Physics.

To break this down a bit:

Electron Dynamics:
I observe or calculate the motion of electrons while they are (or start out) in a bound state as part of an atom.

Strong-Field:
More specifically, I study the motion of these electrons under the influence of a strong and ultrashort laser pulse. The electric (and magnetic) fields of the laser pulse either perturb or even dominate the motion of electrons.

Attosecond:
Electron dynamics under these conditions happen on an attosecond time scale. One attosecond is 10^{-18} seconds short. 
(For a scale reference, our universe is currently about 0.5\cdot 10^{18} seconds old…)

The only way to perform time-resolved experiments on this fast time scale is by using extremely short laser pulses to take different “images” of the system at different times.

Atomics Physics:
I am studying fundamental questions of electrons moving about in the presence of an atomic potential and very strong ultrashort laser pulses. This also implies that we not only need ultrafast temporal resolution, but also sub-atomic spatial resolution.


current affiliation:
ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences
Institute of Computational Life Sciences
Wädenswil, Switzerland

ZHAW ICLS Webpage