Ultrasmall bullets of light--focusing few-cycle light pulses to the diffraction limit

Nonlinear plasmon-exciton coupling enhances sum-frequency generation from a hybrid metal/semiconductor nanostructure

The integration of metallic plasmonic nanoantennas with quantum emitters can dramatically enhance coherent harmonic generation, often resulting from the coupling of fundamental plasmonic fields to higher-energy, electronic or excitonic transitions of quantum emitters. The ultrafast optical dynamics of such hybrid plasmon-emitter systems have rarely been explored. Here, we study those dynamics by interferometrically probing nonlinear optical emission from individual porous gold nanosponges infiltrated with zinc oxide (ZnO) emitters. Few-femtosecond time-resolved photoelectron emission microscopy reveals multiple long-lived localized plasmonic hot spot modes, at the surface of the randomly disordered nanosponges, that are resonant in a broad spectral range. The locally enhanced plasmonic near-field couples to the ZnO excitons, enhancing sum-frequency generation from individual hot spots and boosting resonant excitonic emission. The quantum pathways of the coupling are uncovered from a two-dimensional spectrum correlating fundamental plasmonic excitations to nonlinearly driven excitonic emissions. Our results offer new opportunities for enhancing and coherently controlling optical nonlinearities by exploiting nonlinear plasmon-quantum emitter coupling.

Single-step fabrication of surface waveguides in fused silica with few-cycle laser pulses

Direct laser writing of surface waveguides with ultrashort pulses is a crucial achievement towards all-laser manufacturing of photonic integrated circuits sensitive to their environment. In this Letter, few-cycle laser pulses (with a sub-10 fs duration) are used to produce subsurface waveguides in a non-doped, non-coated fused-silica substrate. The fabrication technique relies on laser-induced microdensification below the threshold for nanopore formation. The optical losses of the fabricated waveguides are governed by the optical properties of the superstrate. We have measured losses ranging from less than 0.1 dB/mm (air superstrate) up to 2.8 dB/mm when immersion oil is applied on top of the waveguide.

Endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fiber as a high resolution probe

We sample ultra-broadband light, focused onto a diffraction-limited spot, to an endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fiber (ESM) and detect both the field amplitude and phase using a SEA TADPOLE interferometer. We resolve spatial features up to 2.5 times finer than the fiber mode size while sampling the periodic features of the bipolar oscillating field in the transverse section. The resolution enhancement is expected also in other types of single-mode fibers in intensity measurements and leads to an inexpensive method for characterizing the point-spread function of such optical fields, e.g., diffraction-limited spots from microscope objectives. In addition, we demonstrate the guidance of a high-NA light field in the fine structure of an ESM fiber mode. The results are especially valuable for devices where a fiber tip acts as an input slit and defines the spatial resolution, e.g., fiber-based interferometers, spectrometers, and sensors.

Shaping and spatiotemporal characterization of sub-10-fs pulses focused by a high-NA objective

We describe a setup consisting of a 4f pulse shaper and a microscope with a high-NA objective lens and discuss the aspects most relevant for an undistorted spatiotemporal profile of the focused beam. We demonstrate shaper-assisted pulse compression in focus to a sub-10-fs duration using phase-resolved interferometric spectral modulation (PRISM). We introduce a nanostructure-based method for sub-diffraction spatiotemporal characterization of strongly focused pulses. The distortions caused by optical aberrations and space-time coupling from the shaper can be reduced by careful setup design and alignment to about 10 nm in space and 1 fs in time.

Toward plasmonics with nanometer precision: nonlinear optics of helium-ion milled gold nanoantennas

Plasmonic nanoantennas are versatile tools for coherently controlling and directing light on the nanoscale. For these antennas, current fabrication techniques such as electron beam lithography (EBL) or focused ion beam (FIB) milling with Ga(+)-ions routinely achieve feature sizes in the 10 nm range. However, they suffer increasingly from inherent limitations when a precision of single nanometers down to atomic length scales is required, where exciting quantum mechanical effects are expected to affect the nanoantenna optics. Here, we demonstrate that a combined approach of Ga(+)-FIB and milling-based He(+)-ion lithography (HIL) for the fabrication of nanoantennas offers to readily overcome some of these limitations. Gold bowtie antennas with 6 nm gap size were fabricated with single-nanometer accuracy and high reproducibility. Using third harmonic (TH) spectroscopy, we find a substantial enhancement of the nonlinear emission intensity of single HIL-antennas compared to those produced by state-of-the-art gallium-based milling. Moreover, HIL-antennas show a vastly improved polarization contrast. This superior nonlinear performance of HIL-derived plasmonic structures is an excellent testimonial to the application of He(+)-ion beam milling for ultrahigh precision nanofabrication, which in turn can be viewed as a stepping stone to mastering quantum optical investigations in the near-field.

Wave front adaptation using a deformable mirror for adiabatic nanofocusing along an ultrasharp gold taper

We describe and demonstrate the use of an adaptive wave front optimization scheme for enhancing the efficiency of adiabatic nanofocusing of surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waves along an ultrasharp conical gold taper. Adiabatic nanofocusing is an emerging and promising scheme for controlled focusing of far field light into nanometric volumes. It comprises three essential steps: SPP excitation by coupling far field light to an SPP waveguide, SPP propagation along the waveguide and adiabatic SPP nanofocusing towards a geometric singularity. For commonly used complex waveguide geometries, such as, e.g., conical metal tapers, a realistic modeling and efficiency optimization is challenging. Here, we use a deformable mirror to adaptively control the wave front of the incident far field light. We demonstrate an eight-fold enhancement in nanofocusing efficiency and analyze the shape of the resulting optimized wave front. The introduced wave front optimization scheme is of general interest for guiding and controlling light on the nanoscale.

Influence of generalized focusing of few-cycle Gaussian pulses in attosecond pulse generation

In contrast to the case of quasi-monochromatic waves, a focused optical pulse in the few-cycle limit may exhibit two independent curved wavefronts, associated with phase and group retardations, respectively. Focusing optical elements will generally affect these two wavefronts differently, thus leading to very different behavior of the pulse near focus. As limiting cases, we consider an ideal diffractive lens introducing only phase retardations and a perfect non-dispersive refractive lens (or a curved mirror) introducing equal phase and group retardations. We study the resulting diffraction effects on the pulse, finding both strong deformations of the pulse shape and shifts in the spectrum. We then show how important these effects can be in highly nonlinear optics, by studying their role in attosecond pulse generation. In particular, the focusing effects are found to affect substantially the generation of isolated attosecond pulses in gases from few-cycle fundamental optical fields.

Strong field acceleration and steering of ultrafast electron pulses from a sharp metallic nanotip

We report a strong, laser-field induced modification of the propagation direction of ultrashort electron pulses emitted from nanometer-sized gold tapers. Angle-resolved kinetic energy spectra of electrons emitted from such tips are recorded using ultrafast near-infrared light pulses of variable wavelength and intensity for excitation. For sufficiently long wavelengths, we observe a pronounced strong-field acceleration of electrons within the field gradient at the taper apex. We find a distinct narrowing of the emission cone angle of the fastest electrons. We ascribe this to the field-induced steering of subcycle electrons as opposed to the diverging emission of quiver electrons. Our findings are corroborated by simulations based on a modified Simpleman model incorporating the curved, vectorial field gradient in the vicinity of the tip. Our results indicate new pathways for designing highly directional nanometer-sized ultrafast electron sources.

Adiabatic nanofocusing on ultrasmooth single-crystalline gold tapers creates a 10-nm-sized light source with few-cycle time resolution

We demonstrate adiabatic nanofocusing of few-cycle light pulses using ultrasharp and ultrasmooth single-crystalline gold tapers. We show that the grating-induced launching of spectrally broad-band surface plasmon polariton wavepackets onto the shaft of such a taper generates isolated, point-like light spots with 10 fs duration and 10 nm diameter spatial extent at its very apex. This nanofocusing is so efficient that nanolocalized electric fields inducing strong optical nonlinearities at the tip end are reached with conventional high repetition rate laser oscillators. We use here the resulting second harmonic to fully characterize the time structure of the localized electric field in frequency-resolved interferometric autocorrelation measurements. Our results strongly suggest that these nanometer-sized ultrafast light spots will enable new experiments probing the dynamics of optical excitations of individual metallic, semiconducting, and magnetic nanostructures.

Ultrashort highly localized wavepackets

The recently introduced concept of radially non-oscillating, temporally stable ultrashort-pulsed Bessel-like beams we referred to as needle beams is generalized to a particular class of highly localized wavepackets (HLWs). Spatio-temporally quasi-nondiffracting pulses propagating along extended zones are shaped from Ti:sapphire oscillator radiation with a spatial light modulator and characterized with spatially resolved second order autocorrelation. Few-cycle wavepackets tailored to resemble circular disks, rings and bars of light represent the closest approximation of linear-optical light bullets known so far. By combining multiple HLWs, complex pulsed nondiffracting patterns are obtained.