A three-year, $6 million grant will support a research project on how ultrafast lasers influence matter. Funded by the National Science Foundation's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, the project involves 30 physicists, chemists, computer scientists and electrical engineers from institutions in Kansas and Nebraska. The researchers will collaborate on imaging and controlling ultrafast dynamics of atoms, molecules and nanostructures. Researchers from Kansas State University's atomic, molecular and optical physics group will observe how fundamental systems react in strong laser fields. “We want to see what light does to molecules so that we can try and use light to control molecular processes,” said Dr. Itzik Ben-Itzhak, distinguished professor of physics at Kansas State. “We can use this knowledge to develop tools for useful future applications.” For more information, visit www.k-state.edu.