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On yoctosecond science

Nature volume 608, pages E16–E17 (2022)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 10 August 2022

The Original Article was published on 17 February 2021

arising from K. P. Heeg et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03276-x (2021)

Time has a central role in physics. Entering the realm of ultrashort timescales is always an exciting endeavour. Two recent publications, in Nature1 and Science Advances2, report the coherent control of collective nuclear excitations in crystals with astonishing temporal precision and stability in the zeptosecond1 (1 zs = 10−21 s) and even yoctosecond2 (1 ys = 10−24 s) range. One yoctosecond is amazingly short: it takes only 2.8 ys for light to travel across a proton. This raises the question of whether we are already able to do yoctosecond-range science. Here we argue, that we are not there yet.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was written in memory of U. van Bürck, Yu. Kagan and G. Trammell. Work at Argonne National Laboratory was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science and Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, lL, USA

    Yuri Shvyd’ko

  2. Dilg, Haeusler, Schindelmann Patentanwaltsgesellschaft mbH, Munich, Germany

    Peter Schindelmann

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  1. Yuri Shvyd’ko
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  2. Peter Schindelmann
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Both authors discussed, wrote and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yuri Shvyd’ko.

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Shvyd’ko, Y., Schindelmann, P. On yoctosecond science. Nature 608, E16–E17 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04870-3

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