Energy distribution curves of ultrafast laser-induced field emission and their implications for electron dynamics

A Gold Needle Tip Array Ultrafast Electron Source with High Beam Quality

Electron sources are crucial elements in diverse applications such as electron microscopes, synchrotrons, and free-electron lasers. Nanometer-sharp needle tips are electron emitters with the highest beam quality, yet for a single needle the current is limited. Combining the emission of multiple needles promises large current yields while preserving the individual emitters' favorable properties. We present an ultrafast electron source consisting of a lithographically fabricated array of sharp gold tips illuminated with 25 fs laser pulses. The source provides up to 2000 electrons per pulse for moderate laser peak intensities of 1011 W/cm2 and a narrow energy width of 0.5 ± 0.05 eV at low current. The electron beam has a well-behaved Gaussian profile and is highly collimated, yielding a small normalized emittance on the order of nm·rad. These properties are well suited for applications requiring both high current and spatial resolution, such as free-electron light sources and chip-based particle accelerators.

Coherent ultrafast photoemission from a single quantized state of a one-dimensional emitter

Femtosecond laser-driven photoemission source provides an unprecedented femtosecond-resolved electron probe not only for atomic-scale ultrafast characterization but also for free-electron radiation sources. However, for conventional metallic electron source, intense lasers may induce a considerable broadening of emitting energy level, which results in large energy spread (>600 milli-electron volts) and thus limits the spatiotemporal resolution of electron probe. Here, we demonstrate the coherent ultrafast photoemission from a single quantized energy level of a carbon nanotube. Its one-dimensional body can provide a sharp quantized electronic excited state, while its zero-dimensional tip can provide a quantized energy level act as a narrow photoemission channel. Coherent resonant tunneling electron emission is evidenced by a negative differential resistance effect and a field-driven Stark splitting effect. The estimated energy spread is ~57 milli-electron volts, which suggests that the proposed carbon nanotube electron source may promote electron probe simultaneously with subangstrom spatial resolution and femtosecond temporal resolution.

Bright and ultrafast electron point source made of LaB6 nanotip

The development of time-resolved transmission electron microscopy (TEM), ultrafast electron spectroscopy and pulsed X-ray sources relies on the realization of stable and high brightness sources of ultra-short electron bunches with a long service time. The flat photocathodes implanted in thermionic electron guns have been replaced by Schottky-type or cold-field emission sources driven by ultra-fast laser. Recently, lanthanum hexaboride (LaB₆) nanoneedles have been reported to have high brightness and high emission stability when working in a continuous emission mode. Here, we prepare nano-field emitters from bulk LaB₆ and we report on their use as ultra-fast electron sources. Using a high repetition rate laser in the infrared range, we present different field emission regimes as a function of the extraction voltage and laser intensity. The properties of the electron source (brightness, stability, energy spectrum and emission pattern) are determined for the different regimes. Our results show that LaB₆ nanoneedles can be used as ultrafast and ultra-bright sources for time-resolved TEM, with better performances as compared to metallic ultra-fast field-emitters.

Femtosecond Thermal and Nonthermal Hot Electron Tunneling Inside a Photoexcited Tunnel Junction

Efficient operation of electronic nanodevices at ultrafast speeds requires understanding and control of the currents generated by femtosecond bursts of light. Ultrafast laser-induced currents in metallic nanojunctions can originate from photoassisted hot electron tunneling or lightwave-induced tunneling. Both processes can drive localized photocurrents inside a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) on femto- to attosecond time scales, enabling ultrafast STM with atomic spatial resolution. Femtosecond laser excitation of a metallic nanojunction, however, also leads to the formation of a transient thermalized electron distribution, but the tunneling of thermalized hot electrons on time scales faster than electron-lattice equilibration is not well understood. Here, we investigate ultrafast electronic heating and transient thermionic tunneling inside a metallic photoexcited tunnel junction and its role in the generation of ultrafast photocurrents in STM. Phase-resolved sampling of broadband terahertz (THz) pulses via the THz-field-induced modulation of ultrafast photocurrents allows us to probe the electronic temperature evolution inside the STM tip and to observe the competition between instantaneous and delayed tunneling due to nonthermal and thermal hot electron distributions in real time. Our results reveal the pronounced nonthermal character of photoinduced hot electron tunneling and provide a detailed microscopic understanding of hot electron dynamics inside a laser-excited tunnel junction.

Phase-Resolved Detection of Ultrabroadband THz Pulses inside a Scanning Tunneling Microscope Junction

Coupling phase-stable single-cycle terahertz (THz) pulses to scanning tunneling microscope (STM) junctions enables spatiotemporal imaging with femtosecond temporal and Ångstrom spatial resolution. The time resolution achieved in such THz-gated STM is ultimately limited by the subcycle temporal variation of the tip-enhanced THz field acting as an ultrafast voltage pulse, and hence by the ability to feed high-frequency, broadband THz pulses into the junction. Here, we report on the coupling of ultrabroadband (1-30 THz) single-cycle THz pulses from a spintronic THz emitter (STE) into a metallic STM junction. We demonstrate broadband phase-resolved detection of the THz voltage transient directly in the STM junction via THz-field-induced modulation of ultrafast photocurrents. Comparison to the unperturbed far-field THz waveform reveals the antenna response of the STM tip. Despite tip-induced low-pass filtering, frequencies up to 15 THz can be detected in the tip-enhanced near-field, resulting in THz transients with a half-cycle period of 115 fs. We further demonstrate simple polarity control of the THz bias via the STE magnetization and show that up to 2 V THz bias at 1 MHz repetition rate can be achieved in the current setup. Finally, we find a nearly constant THz voltage and waveform over a wide range of tip-sample distances, which by comparison to numerical simulations confirms the quasi-static nature of the THz pulses. Our results demonstrate the suitability of spintronic THz emitters for ultrafast THz-STM with unprecedented bandwidth of the THz bias and provide insight into the femtosecond response of defined nanoscale junctions.

Plasmon-Enhanced Resonant Photoemission Using Atomically Thick Dielectric Coatings

By proposing an atomically thick dielectric coating on a metal nanoemitter, we theoretically show that the optical field tunneling of ultrafast-laser-induced photoemission can occur at an ultralow incident field strength of 0.03 V/nm. This coating strongly confines plasmonic fields and provides secondary field enhancement beyond the geometrical plasmon field enhancement effect, which can substantially reduce the barrier and enable more efficient photoemission. We numerically demonstrate that a 1 nm thick layer of SiO₂ around a Au-nanopyramid will enhance the resonant photoemission current density by 2 orders of magnitude, where the transition from multiphoton absorption to optical field tunneling is accessed at an incident laser intensity at least 10 times lower than that of the bare nanoemitter. The effects of the coating properties such as refractive index, thickness, and geometrical settings are studied, and tunable photoemission is numerically demonstrated by using different ultrafast lasers. Our approach can also directly be extended to nonmetal emitters, to-for example-2D material coatings, and to plasmon-induced hot carrier generation.

Bright upconverted emission from light-induced inelastic tunneling

Upconverted light from nanostructured metal surfaces can be produced by harmonic generation and multi-photon luminescence; however, these are very weak processes and require extremely high field intensities to produce a measurable signal. Here we report on bright emission, 5 orders of magnitude greater than harmonic generation, that can be seen from metal tunnel junctions that we believe is due to light-induced inelastic tunneling emission. Like inelastic tunneling light emission, which was recently reported to have 2% conversion efficiency per tunneling event, the emission wavelength recorded varies with the local electric field applied; however, here the field is from a 1560 nm femtosecond pulsed laser source. Finite-difference time-domain simulations of the experimental conditions show the local field is sufficient to generate tunneling-based inelastic light emission in the visible regime. This phenomenon is promising for producing ultrafast upconverted light emission with higher efficiency than conventional nonlinear processes.

Ultrafast Field-Emission Electron Sources Based on Nanomaterials

The search for electron sources with simultaneous optimal spatial and temporal resolution has become an area of intense activity for a wide variety of applications in the emerging fields of lightwave electronics and attosecond science. Most recently, increasing efforts are focused on the investigation of ultrafast field-emission phenomena of nanomaterials, which not only are fascinating from a fundamental scientific point of view, but also are of interest for a range of potential applications. Here, the current state-of-the-art in ultrafast field-emission, particularly sub-optical-cycle field emission, based on various nanostructures (e.g., metallic nanotips, carbon nanotubes) is reviewed. A number of promising nanomaterials and possible future research directions are also established.

Extreme nonlinear strong-field photoemission from carbon nanotubes

Strong-field photoemission produces attosecond (10-18 s) electron pulses that are synchronized to the waveform of the incident light. This nonlinear photoemission lies at the heart of current attosecond technologies. Here we report a new nonlinear photoemission behaviour-the nonlinearity in strong-field regime sharply increases (approaching 40th power-law scaling), making use of sub-nanometric carbon nanotubes and 800 nm pulses. As a result, the carrier-envelope phase sensitive photoemission current shows a greatly improved modulation depth of up to 100% (with a total modulation current up to 2 nA). The calculations reveal that the behaviour is an interplay of valence band optical-field emission with charge interaction, and the nonlinear dynamics can be tunable by changing the bandgap of carbon nanotubes. The extreme nonlinear photoemission offers a new means of producing extreme temporal-spatial resolved electron pulses, and provides a new design philosophy for attosecond electronics and photonics.

Photoassisted and multiphoton emission from single-crystal diamond needles

Practical realization of stable and high brightness sources of ultra-short electron pulses is an important issue in the development of time-resolved electron microscopy for the study of ultra-fast dynamics in materials. Here, we report on the experimental investigation of static (in the dark) and pulsed (under illumination by sub-picosecond laser pulses at 1040 nm) electron emission from single-crystal diamond needles. A significant increase of electron emission current was detected under laser illumination. The nonlinear dependence of the emission current on the laser intensity and on the angle between the needle and the laser beam polarization axis suggests multi-photon emission processes. This interpretation is in agreement with electron spectroscopy measurements performed for electrons emitted at different bias voltages and different laser power levels and repetition rates. The remarkable feature of the diamond emitters is their stability under high average power of laser radiation. This provides a new highly efficient source of photoemitted electrons based on single-crystal diamond.

Femtosecond transmission electron microscopy for nanoscale photonics: a numerical study

Recent developments in ultrafast electron microscopy have shown that spatial and temporal information can be collected simultaneously on very small and fast scales. In the present work, an instrumental design study with application to nanoscale dynamics, we optimize the conditions for a femtosecond transmission electron microscope (fs-TEM). The fs-TEM numerically studied employs a metallic nanotip source, electrostatic acceleration, magnetic lenses, a condenser-objective around the sample and a temporal compressor, and considers space-charge effects during propagation. We find a spatial resolution of the order of 1 nm and a temporal resolution of below 10 fs will be feasible for pulses comprised of on average 20 electrons. The influence of a transverse electric field at the sample plane is modelled, indicating 1 V μm-1 can be resolved, corresponding to a surface charge density of 10e per μm2, comparable to fields generated in light-driven electronics and ultrafast nanoplasmonics. The realisation of such an instrument is anticipated to facilitate unprecedented elucidation of laser-initiated physical, chemical and biological structural dynamics on atomic time- and length-scales.

Towards femtosecond on-chip electronics based on plasmonic hot electron nano-emitters

To combine the advantages of ultrafast femtosecond nano-optics with an on-chip communication scheme, optical signals with a frequency of several hundreds of THz need to be down-converted to coherent electronic signals propagating on-chip. So far, this has not been achieved because of the overall slow response time of nanoscale electronic circuits. Here, we demonstrate that 14 fs optical pulses in the near-infrared can drive electronic on-chip circuits with a prospective bandwidth up to 10 THz. The corresponding electronic pulses propagate in macroscopic striplines on a millimeter scale. We exploit femtosecond photoswitches based on asymmetric, nanoscale metal junctions to drive the pulses. The non-linear ultrafast response is based on a plasmonically enhanced, multiphoton absorption resulting in a field emission of ballistic hot electrons propagating across the nanoscale junctions. Our results pave the way towards femtosecond electronics integrated in wafer-scale THz circuits.

Enhanced field-emission properties of buckled α-borophene by means of Li decoration: a first-principles investigation

In this study, the structures and field-emission properties of Li-decorated buckled α-borophene (BBP) were investigated by first-principles density functional theory at the PW91 level. Using the computed binding energies, Hirshfeld- and electrostatic potential-derived charges, induced dipole moments, densities of states, and ionization potentials, we evaluated the influence of an applied electric field on the structural stability, work function, and field-emission current of the Li-decorated BBP nanostructures. Furthermore, we also explored the quantitative dependence of the emission current on the electric field, Li concentration, and molecular orbitals. The computed results indicated that increasing the electric field and Li concentration has a considerably positive effect on the field-emission performance of the Li-decorated BBPs. Besides advantages including small work functions and low ionization potentials, most remarkably, the field-emission current can be as high as 48.81 μA in Li4/BBP (supercell with 36 atoms only) under a rather small applied electric field of 0.05 V Å-1, which rivals the highest value of the graphene-BN nanocomposite among all the theoretical nanostructures presented to date. Our results highly support the fact that Li-decorated BBPs can be appealing field-emission cathode materials with an extremely high emission current.

Strong field transient manipulation of electronic states and bands

In the present review, laser fields are so strong that they become part of the electronic potential, and sometimes even dominate the Coulomb contribution. This manipulation of atomic potentials and of the associated states and bands finds fascinating applications in gases and solids, both in the bulk and at the surface. We present some recent spectacular examples obtained within the NCCR MUST in Switzerland.

Optical Control of Young's Type Double-slit Interferometer for Laser-induced Electron Emission from a Nano-tip

Interference experiments with electrons in a vacuum can illuminate both the quantum and the nanoscale nature of the underlying physics. An interference experiment requires two coherent waves, which can be generated by splitting a single coherent wave using a double slit. If the slit-edge separation is larger than the coherence width at the slit, no interference appears. Here we employed variations in surface barrier at the apex of a tungsten nano-tip as slits and achieved an optically controlled double slit, where the separation and opening-and-closing of the two slits can be controlled by respectively adjusting the intensity and polarization of ultrashort laser pulses. Using this technique, we have demonstrated interference between two electron waves emitted from the tip apex, where interference has never been observed prior to this technique because of the large slit-edge separation. Our findings pave the way towards simple time-resolved electron holography on e.g. molecular adsorbates employing just a nano-tip and a screen.

Carbon Nanotubes as an Ultrafast Emitter with a Narrow Energy Spread at Optical Frequency

Ultrafast electron pulses, combined with laser-pump and electron-probe technologies, allow ultrafast dynamics to be characterized in materials. However, the pursuit of simultaneous ultimate spatial and temporal resolution of microscopy and spectroscopy is largely subdued by the low monochromaticity of the electron pulses and their poor phase synchronization to the optical excitation pulses. Field-driven photoemission from metal tips provides high light-phase synchronization, but suffers large electron energy spreads (3-100 eV) as driven by a long wavelength laser (>800 nm). Here, ultrafast electron emission from carbon nanotubes (≈1 nm radius) excited by a 410 nm femtosecond laser is realized in the field-driven regime. In addition, the emitted electrons have great monochromaticity with energy spread as low as 0.25 eV. This great performance benefits from the extraordinarily high field enhancement and great stability of carbon nanotubes, superior to metal tips. The new nanotube-based ultrafast electron source opens exciting prospects for extending current characterization to sub-femtosecond temporal resolution as well as sub-nanometer spatial resolution.

Nanotip-based photoelectron microgun for ultrafast LEED

We present the design and fabrication of a micrometer-scale electron gun for the implementation of ultrafast low-energy electron diffraction from surfaces. A multi-step process involving photolithography and focused-ion-beam nanostructuring is used to assemble and electrically contact the photoelectron gun, which consists of a nanotip photocathode in a Schottky geometry and an einzel lens for beam collimation. We characterize the low-energy electron pulses by a transient electric field effect and achieve pulse durations of 1.3 ps at an electron energy of 80 eV. First diffraction images in a backscattering geometry (at 50 eV electron energy) are shown.

Attosecond physics at the nanoscale

Recently two emerging areas of research, attosecond and nanoscale physics, have started to come together. Attosecond physics deals with phenomena occurring when ultrashort laser pulses, with duration on the femto- and sub-femtosecond time scales, interact with atoms, molecules or solids. The laser-induced electron dynamics occurs natively on a timescale down to a few hundred or even tens of attoseconds (1 attosecond  =  1 as  =  10^-18 s), which is comparable with the optical field. For comparison, the revolution of an electron on a 1s orbital of a hydrogen atom is  ∼152 as. On the other hand, the second branch involves the manipulation and engineering of mesoscopic systems, such as solids, metals and dielectrics, with nanometric precision. Although nano-engineering is a vast and well-established research field on its own, the merger with intense laser physics is relatively recent. In this report on progress we present a comprehensive experimental and theoretical overview of physics that takes place when short and intense laser pulses interact with nanosystems, such as metallic and dielectric nanostructures. In particular we elucidate how the spatially inhomogeneous laser induced fields at a nanometer scale modify the laser-driven electron dynamics. Consequently, this has important impact on pivotal processes such as above-threshold ionization and high-order harmonic generation. The deep understanding of the coupled dynamics between these spatially inhomogeneous fields and matter configures a promising way to new avenues of research and applications. Thanks to the maturity that attosecond physics has reached, together with the tremendous advance in material engineering and manipulation techniques, the age of atto-nanophysics has begun, but it is in the initial stage. We present thus some of the open questions, challenges and prospects for experimental confirmation of theoretical predictions, as well as experiments aimed at characterizing the induced fields and the unique electron dynamics initiated by them with high temporal and spatial resolution.

High-energy electron emission from metallic nano-tips driven by intense single-cycle terahertz pulses

Electrons ejected from atoms and subsequently driven to high energies in strong laser fields enable techniques from attosecond pulse generation to imaging with rescattered electrons. Analogous processes govern strong-field electron emission from nanostructures, where long wavelength radiation and large local field enhancements hold the promise for producing electrons with substantially higher energies, allowing for higher resolution time-resolved imaging. Here we report on the use of single-cycle terahertz pulses to drive electron emission from unbiased nano-tips. Energies exceeding 5 keV are observed, substantially greater than previously attained at higher drive frequencies. Despite large differences in the magnitude of the respective local fields, we find that the maximum electron energies are only weakly dependent on the tip radius, for 10 nm<R<1,000 nm. Due to the single-cycle nature of the field, the high-energy electron emission is predicted to be confined to a single burst, potentially enabling a variety of applications.

High-energy electron sources are powerful tools for investigating dynamics at atomic and subatomic scales. Here, Li and Jones demonstrate the terahertz-driven emission of electrons with energies exceeding five kiloelectronvolts from nano-tips and study its dependence on the tip radius.

Delayed electron emission in strong-field driven tunnelling from a metallic nanotip in the multi-electron regime

Illuminating a nano-sized metallic tip with ultrashort laser pulses leads to the emission of electrons due to multiphoton excitations. As optical fields become stronger, tunnelling emission directly from the Fermi level becomes prevalent. This can generate coherent electron waves in vacuum leading to a variety of attosecond phenomena. Working at high emission currents where multi-electron effects are significant, we were able to characterize the transition from one regime to the other. Specifically, we found that the onset of laser-driven tunnelling emission is heralded by the appearance of a peculiar delayed emission channel. In this channel, the electrons emitted via laser-driven tunnelling emission are driven back into the metal, and some of the electrons reappear in the vacuum with some delay time after undergoing inelastic scattering and cascading processes inside the metal. Our understanding of these processes gives insights on attosecond tunnelling emission from solids and should prove useful in designing new types of pulsed electron sources.

Ultrafast strong-field photoelectron emission from biased metal surfaces: exact solution to time-dependent Schrödinger Equation

Laser-driven ultrafast electron emission offers the possibility of manipulation and control of coherent electron motion in ultrashort spatiotemporal scales. Here, an analytical solution is constructed for the highly nonlinear electron emission from a dc biased metal surface illuminated by a single frequency laser, by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation exactly. The solution is valid for arbitrary combinations of dc electric field, laser electric field, laser frequency, metal work function and Fermi level. Various emission mechanisms, such as multiphoton absorption or emission, optical or dc field emission, are all included in this single formulation. The transition between different emission processes is analyzed in detail. The time-dependent emission current reveals that intense current modulation may be possible even with a low intensity laser, by merely increasing the applied dc bias. The results provide insights into the electron pulse generation and manipulation for many novel applications based on ultrafast laser-induced electron emission.

Ultrafast Time-Resolved Photoelectric Emission

The emission times of laser-triggered electrons from a sharp tungsten tip are directly characterized under ultrafast, near-infrared laser excitation at Keldysh parameters of 6.6<γ<19.1. Emission delays up to 10 fs are observed, which are inferred from the energy gain of photoelectrons emitted into a synchronously driven microwave cavity. Few femtosecond timing resolution is achieved in a configuration capable of measuring timing shifts up to 55 ps. The technique can also be used to measure the microwave phase inside the cavity with a precision below 70 fs upon the energy resolved detection of a single electron.

Ultrafast oscilloscope based on laser-triggered field emitters

Laser-triggered electron emission from sharp metal tips has been demonstrated in recent years as a high brightness, ultrafast electron source. Its possible applications range from ultrafast electron microscopy to laser-based particle accelerators to electron interferometry. The ultrafast nature of the emission process allows for the sampling of an instantaneous radio frequency (RF) voltage that has been applied to a field emitter. For proof-of-concept, we use an RF signal derived from our laser's repetition rate, mapping a 9.28 GHz signal in 22.4 fs steps with 28 mv accuracy.

Nanostructured ultrafast silicon-tip optical field-emitter arrays

Femtosecond ultrabright electron sources with spatially structured emission are an enabling technology for free-electron lasers, compact coherent X-ray sources, electron diffractive imaging, and attosecond science. In this work, we report the design, modeling, fabrication, and experimental characterization of a novel ultrafast optical field emission cathode comprised of a large (>100,000 tips), dense (4.6 million tips·cm(-2)), and highly uniform (<1 nm tip radius deviation) array of nanosharp high-aspect-ratio silicon columns. Such field emitters offer an attractive alternative to UV photocathodes while providing a direct means of structuring the emitted electron beam. Detailed measurements and simulations show pC electron bunches can be generated in the multiphoton and tunneling regime within a single optical cycle, enabling significant advances in electron diffractive imaging and coherent X-ray sources on a subfemtosecond time scale, not possible before. At high charge emission yields, a slow rollover in charge is explained as a combination of the onset of tunneling emission and the formation of a virtual cathode.

Surface-plasmon resonance-enhanced multiphoton emission of high-brightness electron beams from a nanostructured copper cathode

We experimentally investigate surface-plasmon assisted photoemission to enhance the efficiency of metallic photocathodes for high-brightness electron sources. A nanohole array-based copper surface was designed to exhibit a plasmonic response at 800 nm, fabricated using the focused ion beam milling technique, optically characterized and tested as a photocathode in a high power radio frequency photoinjector. Because of the larger absorption and localization of the optical field intensity, the charge yield observed under ultrashort laser pulse illumination is increased by more than 100 times compared to a flat surface. We also present the first beam characterization results (intrinsic emittance and bunch length) from a nanostructured photocathode.

First-principles electron dynamics control simulation of diamond under femtosecond laser pulse train irradiation

A real-time and real-space time-dependent density functional is applied to simulate the nonlinear electron-photon interactions during shaped femtosecond laser pulse train ablation of diamond. Effects of the key pulse train parameters such as the pulse separation, spatial/temporal pulse energy distribution and pulse number per train on the electron excitation and energy absorption are discussed. The calculations show that photon-electron interactions and transient localized electron dynamics can be controlled including photon absorption, electron excitation, electron density, and free electron distribution by the ultrafast laser pulse train.

Electron spectrometer in adjustable triode configuration for photo-induced field emission measurements

We have constructed a new ultrahigh vacuum apparatus with a triode configuration for the systematic investigation of photo-induced field emission (PFE) from metallic or semiconducting cathodes. These are exposed to electric fields up to 400 MV∕m and laser irradiation by means of hole or mesh gates. Cathodes and gates are in situ exchangeable and adjustable with high precision to ensure a homogeneous extraction of electrons which are partially transmitted to the fixed electron spectrometer. Its hemispherical sector analyzer provides an energy resolution limit of 8 meV. The commissioning of the measurement system has been performed with a tungsten needle. Its temperature showed up in the high-energy tail of the electron spectrum, while its work function was derived from the spectral low-energy part combined with the integral current-voltage curve. First PFE measurements on B-doped Si-tip arrays yielded a small field emission current increase under green laser illumination. A shift and splitting of the energy spectra was observed which revealed different emission regimes as well as the photosensitivity of the cathode due to carrier excitation into the conduction band. For the full exploitation of the PFE system, a tunable laser over a wide eV-range is required.