Dr. Olga Smirnova
The atomic physicist is working on developing Attosecond Science at the Max-Born-Institut
Olga Smirnova was born in Moscow and has graduated from the Moscow State University. After completing her PhD in 2000, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the Moscow State University. At this time she became interested in the emerging field of Attosecond science, leaving in 2003 to Vienna Technical University as Lise Meitner Fellow, to work with Dr. A. Scrinzi and Prof. F. Krausz.
In 2005 she joined another major center for Attosecond Science, National Research Council of Canada, working with Prof. P. Corkum and Dr. M. Ivanov. She obtained a tenured position at NRC in 2007.
In 2009 Olga she joined the Max Born Institute (MBI) as a junior group leader to develop theoretical approaches to ultrafast dynamical imaging – after winning a competitive proposal within the framework of the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft’s SAW procedure for the “Pakt für Forschung und Innovation”.
Her research focus
Imaging structures and dynamics is a major direction of modern science which encompasses physics, chemistry and biology. The transition from observing ensemble rate kinetics of chemical and biological structures to single molecule dynamics has become possible with the advent of femtosecond science, which follows the movements of atoms within a molecule.
However, much faster motion – that of electrons – underlies and controls the life of atoms, their motion in molecules, and ultimately the chemical rearrangements (reactions) that result. This electronic motion occurs on the attosecond time-scale (1 asec=10-18 sec).
Olga Smirnova is working on developing Attosecond Science to follow this and other types of ultrafast electron dynamics. She focuses on the development of new methods of ultrafast measurements based on the application of strong IR fields to drive electrons in molecules and use them to image their own motion via the so-called recollision.
Recollision is a natural probe of attosecond dynamics which yields attosecond temporal and sub-Angstrom spatial resolution. Recollision occurs when the liberated electron, oscillating in the strong laser field, revisits the parent ion. It leads to various output channels, such as elastic and inelastic scattering and radiative recombination. The former channel can be used to obtain diffraction images of the parent ion at the moment of recollision, the latter records molecular structure and dynamics in the emitted XUV light (high harmonics of the driving field).
These new methods of ultrafast measurements deal with complex non-perturbative interactions between molecules and laser pulses. Such interactions are challenging for quantitatively accurate theoretical description. The scientific work of Dr. Olga Smirnova focuses on the development of accurate theoretical approaches capable of meeting these challenges and on reconstructing attosecond multielectron dynamics in atoms and molecules from experimental observables.
The combination of theory (developed together with Dr. S. Patchkovskii and Dr. M. Ivanov ) and experiment (Dr. Y. Mairesse et al) on high harmonic generation in CO2 molecules (see Fig. 1) has allowed her and her colleagues to resolve the dynamics of strong field ionization both in time and in space.
The figure shows measured (a-b) and calculated (c-d) harmonic spectra as a function of the harmonic number and the molecular angle in CO2 are used to reconstruct the hole dynamics during and after ionization. The experimental intensities are I = 1.1 1014 W/cm2 (a) and I = 1.8\ 1014 W/cm2 (b), calculations are shown for I = 1.26 1014 W/cm2 and I = 1.8 1014 W/cm2.
Contact: Dr. Olga Smirnova, smirnova(at)mbi-berlin.de, tel. +49 30 / 6392-1356 Max Born Institute, Berlin-Adlershof, www.mbi-berlin.de