{"id":235613,"date":"2026-04-20T22:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T03:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/why-ultrashort-laser-pulses-could-make-low-power-electron-sources-far-more-practical"},"modified":"2026-04-20T22:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T03:34:11","slug":"why-ultrashort-laser-pulses-could-make-low-power-electron-sources-far-more-practical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/why-ultrashort-laser-pulses-could-make-low-power-electron-sources-far-more-practical","title":{"rendered":"Why ultrashort laser pulses could make low-power electron sources far more practical"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/why-ultrashort-laser-pulses-could-make-low-power-electron-sources-far-more-practical2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A new theoretical study finds shorter laser pulses achieve higher quantum efficiency for photoemission from a solid surface without increasing power or intensity. Using light to knock electrons loose from a surface\u2014known as photoemission\u2014may soon be achievable more easily in smaller labs with smaller lasers. Shortening the length of a laser pulse can increase the emitted electrons by several orders of magnitude without increasing the laser intensity or power, according to a University of Michigan Engineering study.<\/p>\n<p>The study is <a href=\"https:\/\/link.aps.org\/doi\/10.1103\/zhd1-5d6q\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in Physical Review Research.<\/p>\n<p>Efficient, low-power photoemission could make particle acceleration and high-resolution imaging techniques to visualize cells and atoms more accessible. It could also help researchers develop lightwave electronics, which use light to move charge carriers, for ultrafast computing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new theoretical study finds shorter laser pulses achieve higher quantum efficiency for photoemission from a solid surface without increasing power or intensity. Using light to knock electrons loose from a surface\u2014known as photoemission\u2014may soon be achievable more easily in smaller labs with smaller lasers. Shortening the length of a laser pulse can increase the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,38,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-engineering","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}