Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas

© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. At the surfaces of nanostructures, enhanced electric fields can drive optical-field photoemission and thereby generate and control electrical currents at frequencies exceeding 100 THz (refs. 1–11). A hallmark of such optical-...

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Main Authors: Keathley, PD, Putnam, WP, Vasireddy, P, Hobbs, RG, Yang, Y, Berggren, KK, Kärtner, FX
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134145
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author Keathley, PD
Putnam, WP
Vasireddy, P
Hobbs, RG
Yang, Y
Berggren, KK
Kärtner, FX
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Keathley, PD
Putnam, WP
Vasireddy, P
Hobbs, RG
Yang, Y
Berggren, KK
Kärtner, FX
author_sort Keathley, PD
collection MIT
description © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. At the surfaces of nanostructures, enhanced electric fields can drive optical-field photoemission and thereby generate and control electrical currents at frequencies exceeding 100 THz (refs. 1–11). A hallmark of such optical-field photoemission is the sensitivity of the total emitted current to the carrier-envelope phase (CEP)1–3,7,11–17. Here, we examine CEP-sensitive photoemission from plasmonic gold nanoantennas excited with few-cycle optical pulses. At a critical pulse energy, which we call a vanishing point, we observe a pronounced dip in the magnitude of the CEP-sensitive photocurrent accompanied by a sudden shift of π radians in the photocurrent phase. Analysis shows that this vanishing behaviour arises due to competition between sub-optical-cycle electron emission events from neighbouring optical half-cycles and that both the dip and phase shift are highly sensitive to the precise shape of the driving optical waveform at the surface of the emitter. As the mechanisms underlying the dip and phase shift are a general consequence of nonlinear, field-driven photoemission, they may be used to probe sub-optical-cycle emission processes from solid-state emitters, atoms and molecules. Improved understanding of these CEP-sensitive photocurrent features will be critical to the development of optical-field-driven photocathodes for time-domain metrology and microscopy applications demanding attosecond temporal and nanometre spatial resolution.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1341452023-02-22T21:00:32Z Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas Keathley, PD Putnam, WP Vasireddy, P Hobbs, RG Yang, Y Berggren, KK Kärtner, FX Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. At the surfaces of nanostructures, enhanced electric fields can drive optical-field photoemission and thereby generate and control electrical currents at frequencies exceeding 100 THz (refs. 1–11). A hallmark of such optical-field photoemission is the sensitivity of the total emitted current to the carrier-envelope phase (CEP)1–3,7,11–17. Here, we examine CEP-sensitive photoemission from plasmonic gold nanoantennas excited with few-cycle optical pulses. At a critical pulse energy, which we call a vanishing point, we observe a pronounced dip in the magnitude of the CEP-sensitive photocurrent accompanied by a sudden shift of π radians in the photocurrent phase. Analysis shows that this vanishing behaviour arises due to competition between sub-optical-cycle electron emission events from neighbouring optical half-cycles and that both the dip and phase shift are highly sensitive to the precise shape of the driving optical waveform at the surface of the emitter. As the mechanisms underlying the dip and phase shift are a general consequence of nonlinear, field-driven photoemission, they may be used to probe sub-optical-cycle emission processes from solid-state emitters, atoms and molecules. Improved understanding of these CEP-sensitive photocurrent features will be critical to the development of optical-field-driven photocathodes for time-domain metrology and microscopy applications demanding attosecond temporal and nanometre spatial resolution. 2021-10-27T19:58:20Z 2021-10-27T19:58:20Z 2019 2020-12-01T19:28:44Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134145 en 10.1038/S41567-019-0613-6 Nature Physics Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf Springer Science and Business Media LLC PMC
spellingShingle Keathley, PD
Putnam, WP
Vasireddy, P
Hobbs, RG
Yang, Y
Berggren, KK
Kärtner, FX
Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas
title Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas
title_full Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas
title_fullStr Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas
title_full_unstemmed Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas
title_short Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas
title_sort vanishing carrier envelope phase sensitive response in optical field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134145
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