Nanostructured Ultrafast Silicon-Tip Optical Field-Emitter Arrays

Swanwick, Michael; Keathley, Phillip D.; Fallahi, Arya; Krogen, Peter; Laurent, Guillaume; Moses, Jeffrey; Kärtner, Franz X.; Velásquez–García, Luis Fernando

doi:10.1021/nl501589j

Cited by 83 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Irrespective of multielectron emission from the nanowire tips at these intensities, we find a strong CEP-dependence for the range of rescattering electrons, indicative of the attosecond control of electron emission. 20,25 II. APPROACH…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attosecond-controlled photoemission from metal nanowire tips in the few-electron regime

et al. 2017

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Extreme nonlinear terahertz electro-optics in diamond for ultrafast pulse switching APL Photonics 2, 036106 (2017) Metal nanotip photoemitters have proven to be versatile in fundamental nanoplasmonics research and applications, including, e.g., the generation of ultrafast electron pulses, the adiabatic focusing of plasmons, and as light-triggered electron sources for microscopy. Here, we report the generation of high energy photoelectrons (up to 160 eV) in photoemission from single-crystalline nanowire tips in few-cycle, 750-nm laser fields at peak intensities of (2-7.3) × 10 12 W/cm 2 . Recording the carrier-envelope phase (CEP)-dependent photoemission from the nanowire tips allows us to identify rescattering contributions and also permits us to determine the high-energy cutoff of the electron spectra as a function of laser intensity. So far these types of experiments from metal nanotips have been limited to an emission regime with less than one electron per pulse. We detect up to 13 e/shot and given the limited detection efficiency, we expect up to a few ten times more electrons being emitted from the nanowire. Within the investigated intensity range, we find linear scaling of cutoff energies. The nonlinear scaling of electron count rates is consistent with tunneling photoemission occurring in the absence of significant charge interaction. The high electron energy gain is attributed to field-induced rescattering in the enhanced nanolocalized fields at the wires apex, where a strong CEP-modulation is indicative of the attosecond control of photoemission. © 2017 Author(s)

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attosecond-controlled photoemission from metal nanowire tips in the few-electron regime

et al. 2017

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“…For instance, when an intense laser pulse interacts with an atomic gas, individual cycles of the incident electric field ionize gas atoms and steer the resulting attosecond-duration electrical wavepackets 1,2 . Such field-controlled light-matter interactions form the basis of attosecond science and have recently expanded from gases to solid-state nanostructures [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] . Here, we extend these field-controlled interactions to metallic nanoparticles supporting localized surface plasmon resonances.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Due primarily to the tip's sharp geometry, the field enhancement is typically <10, and the temporal profile of the enhanced field, F tip (t), approximately follows that of the instantaneous incident field 21,22 . With typical incident intensities, F tip (t) can drive strong-field processes: photoemission current yields and photoelectron energy spectra from nanotips have shown strong-field characteristics [3][4][5]7,10,11,14,15 , and exciting nanotips with phase-stabilized laser pulses, CEP-sensitive signatures have been observed 5,14 . Compared with nanotips, metallic nanoparticles offer higher field enhancements as well as additional resonant and geometric degrees of freedom.…”

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confidence: 99%

Optical-field-controlled photoemission from plasmonic nanoparticles

et al. 2016

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At high intensities, light-matter interactions are controlled by the electric field of the exciting light. For instance, when an intense laser pulse interacts with an atomic gas, individual cycles of the incident electric field ionize gas atoms and steer the resulting attosecond-duration electrical wavepackets 1,2 . Such field-controlled light-matter interactions form the basis of attosecond science and have recently expanded from gases to solid-state nanostructures [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] . Here, we extend these field-controlled interactions to metallic nanoparticles supporting localized surface plasmon resonances. We demonstrate strong-field, carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive photoemission from arrays of tailored metallic nanoparticles, and we show the influence of the nanoparticle geometry and the plasmon resonance on the phase-sensitive response. Additionally, from a technological standpoint, we push strong-field light-matter interactions to the chip scale. We integrate our plasmonic nanoparticles and experimental geometry in compact, microoptoelectronic devices that operate out of vacuum and under ambient conditions.Moving from low to high optical intensity, photoemission goes from photon-driven to field-controlled. Consider illuminating a metallic surface with an infrared femtosecond laser pulse with electric field F(t) = F 0 A(t) cos(ωt + ϕ), where F 0 is the peak field, A(t) is the normalized pulse envelope, ω is the carrier frequency, and ϕ is the carrier-envelope phase (CEP). When the pulse interacts with the metallic surface, electrons are excited out of the metal and into the surrounding vacuum. At typical incident intensities, this photoemission process is photon-driven: emission is dictated by the pulse's photon energy, that is, ω, and photon flux, that is, the pulse's intensity envelope ∝ |F 0 A(t)| 2 . At high intensities, this photoemission process resembles field-controlled tunnelling. The strong electric field of the pulse deflects the binding potential of the metallic surface and drives electron tunnelling through the distorted barrier. This tunnelling occurs over a timescale τ t = √ 2mW F /eF 0 , where W F is the workfunction of the surface, m is the electron mass, and e is its charge 19,20 . With sufficiently strong F 0 , τ t becomes shorter than the characteristic cycle time of the exciting laser light (τ t < τ cyc = 1/ω), and individual cycles of the driving electric field eject subcycle electrical bursts from the metal and steer these ultrafast currents through the surrounding vacuum 6,8 ; in this strongfield regime, photoemission is controlled by the driving optical electric field and, accordingly, by the CEP, ϕ.In recent years, metallic nanotips have emerged as platforms to non-destructively investigate photoemission in the strong-field regime. When a nanotip is illuminated by a femtosecond laser pulse, the incident field is locally enhanced at the apex of the tip. Due primarily to the tip's sharp geometry, the field enhancement is typically <10, and th...

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“…The high peak electric fields provided by single-cycle light pulses can be harnessed to manipulate and control charge motion in solid-state systems, resulting in electron emission out of metals and semiconductors [1][2][3][4][5][6] or high harmonics generation in dielectrics 7,8 . These processes are of a non-perturbative character and require precise reproducibility of the electric-field profile [9][10][11][12][13][14] .…”

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Sub-cycle optical phase control of nanotunnelling in the single-electron regime

et al. 2016

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The high peak electric fields provided by single-cycle light pulses can be harnessed to manipulate and control charge motion in solid-state systems, resulting in electron emission out of metals and semiconductors [1][2][3][4][5][6] or high harmonics generation in dielectrics 7,8 . These processes are of a non-perturbative character and require precise reproducibility of the electric-field profile 9-14 . Here, we vary the carrier-envelope phase of 6-fs-long near-infrared pulses with pJ-level energy to control electronic transport in a laterally confined nanoantenna with an 8 nm gap. Peak current densities of 50 MA cm -2 are achieved, corresponding to the transfer of individual electrons in a half-cycle period of 2 fs. The observed behaviours are made possible by the strong distortion of the effective tunnelling barrier due to the extreme electric fields that the nanostructure provides and sustains under sub-cycle optical biasing. Operating at room temperature and in a standard atmosphere, the performed experiments demonstrate a robust class of nanoelectronic switches gated by phase-locked optical transients of minute energy content.Present-day high-frequency devices operate in the microwave range, but direct control of electron flow by the electric-field profile of few-cycle optical pulses has recently been demonstrated 12,15 . These experiments were based on strong perturbation of the electronic system in a dielectric material, resulting in a large incoherent background current. Nanoscale confinement of the region biased by the optical transient might avoid a significant influence of nonlinear conductivity in an insulating substrate and result in purely coherent tunnelling currents 16 that may be controlled by the precise shape of the electric field cycles. Our approach to reaching this goal is illustrated in the upper part of Fig. 1a. A single-cycle near-infrared pulse (left) is focused to a nanoscale junction of an electronic circuit (centre) with nonlinear and antisymmetric current-voltage (I-V) characteristics (right). An effective bias then arises when the exciting electric field is cosine-shaped (blue transient and blue dot in the I-V scheme) because its extremum occurs only for one polarity. Consequently, the symmetry of electronic transport is broken, even when integrating over the entire transient, and a net tunnelling current of electrons results through the potential barrier represented by the free-space gap (Fig. 1b,c). Our experiment favours tunnelling over other phenomena such as multiphoton ionization 4 by operating with ultrashort pulses and extreme nanoconfinement of the electric field. No background current exists when the control field is sineshaped (red transient and dot in the I-V characteristics, respectively), because positive and negative polarities now have precisely opposite effects. Consequently, the total current amplitude and direction may be set by varying the carrier-envelope phase (CEP), Δφ CEP , of the pulse. Owing to the single-cycle pulse duration, nanoscale constriction and fi...

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Nanostructured Ultrafast Silicon-Tip Optical Field-Emitter Arrays

Cited by 83 publications

References 31 publications

Attosecond-controlled photoemission from metal nanowire tips in the few-electron regime

Attosecond-controlled photoemission from metal nanowire tips in the few-electron regime

Optical-field-controlled photoemission from plasmonic nanoparticles

Sub-cycle optical phase control of nanotunnelling in the single-electron regime

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