‘Attoclock’ and the quest for tunneling time in strong–field physics

The question-‘How long does it take for a quantum particle to tunnel through a potential barrier?’ is an intriguing one that sparked debates concerning the meaning, value and the interpretation of ‘tunneling time’. The advent of ultrafast technology aided in developing the ‘attoclock’ technique that involves inducing optical tunneling, wherein the bound electron is liberated through tunnel ionization and simultaneously probes it with a precision of few attoseconds (1 as =10^-18 s). Although the initial attoclock measurements hinted at instantaneous tunneling, later experiments contradicted those findings claimed to have measured finite tunneling times. In my talk, I would share the results of the first attoclock experiment performed with the benchmarking atomic system-atomic hydrogen, which is long believed to resolve the ongoing debate on attoclock tunneling time measurements.