Attosecond tunnelling interferometry

Attosecond physics offers new insights into ultrafast quantum phenomena involving electron dynamics on the fastest measurable timescales. The rapid progress in this field enables us to re-visit one of the most fundamental strong-field phenomena: field-induced tunnel ionization(1-3). In this work, we employ high-harmonic generation to probe the electron wavefunction during field-induced tunnelling through a potential barrier. By using a combination of strong and weak driving laser fields, we modulate the atomic potential barrier on optical subcycle timescales. This induces a temporal interferometer between attosecond bursts originating from consecutive laser half-cycles. Our study provides direct insight into the basic properties of field-induced tunnelling, following the evolution of the electronic wavefunction within a temporal window of approximately 200 attoseconds.