ATTOSTRUCTURA aims to develop novel laser light tools structured in their temporal, spectral, spatial and polarization properties. Such development would enable a unique opportunity to access and control electronic and spin properties of many materials at their natural spatial and temporal scales. For example, intense structured ultrafast electromagnetic laser pulses open the possibility to control the ultrafast magnetization of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic materials, at the femtosecond or even attosecond scales. With such tools, we envision potential applications towards high-rate magnetic recording from ultrafast magnetization reversal. But before that, advanced theoretical simulations are required to unveil the fundamental processes lying beyond the generation and the application of such structured pulses.

Thanks to the rapid development of laser technology during the last decade, and, in particular, to the process of high harmonic generation, today it is possible to generate the shortest laser pulses. These are emitted at the attosecond timescale, but in addition, they can be structured in both their polarization (from linear to circular) and their orbital angular momentum. In ATTOSTRUCTURA we aim to push the properties of such structured laser pulses to their limits to pioneer strategies towards the generation of ultrafast light tools with controlled angular momentum. Also, we aim to design new scenarios of harmonic generation in atomic and solid systems, where structured pulses would give access to novel ultrafast phenonema and, last but not least, to explore scenarios of ultrafast magnetism.

In these directions, and up to now, we have performed theoretical calculations to introduce new characterization techniques, from ellipsometry to spectral interferometry, to accurately characterize the ultrafast variations of the angular momentum  content of  ultrashort laser pulses. We have also developed a complete microscopic + macroscopic theoretical model of high harmonic generation in gases and 2D solid systems, that makes extensively use of high performance computing tools. This has allowed us to explore correlated electron dynamics under the effect of intense electromagnetic fields, to study the role of transverse phase-matching in high harmonic generation in 2D solids such as  graphene, and to identify the anisotropic behaviour of 2D solid systems. In addition, we are thrilled with our advances in the study of magnetization dynamics in systems governed by the well-known Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation, within an atomistic semiclassical model of the magnetic system and under the effect of an intense structured laser pulse.

Within these and the forthcoming advances of ATTOSTRUCTURA, and in collaboration with our experimental collaborators, we shall propose a new set of experiments that can benefit of the uniqueness of structured electromagnetic fields in diverse fields, in particular, in femtosecond, or even attosecond, ultrafast magnetism.