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Controlled near-field enhanced electron acceleration from dielectric nanospheres with intense few-cycle laser fields

Nature Physics volume 7, pages 656–662 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

Collective electron motion in condensed matter typically unfolds on a sub-femtosecond timescale. The well-defined electric field evolution of intense, phase-stable few-cycle laser pulses provides an ideal tool for controlling this motion. The resulting manipulation of local electric fields at nanometre spatial and attosecond temporal scales offers unique spatio-temporal control of ultrafast nonlinear processes at the nanoscale, with important implications for the advancement of nanoelectronics. Here we demonstrate the attosecond control of the collective electron motion and directional emission from isolated dielectric (SiO2) nanoparticles with phase-stabilized few-cycle laser fields. A novel acceleration mechanism leading to the ejection of highly energetic electrons is identified by the comparison of the results to quasi-classical model calculations. The observed lightwave control in nanosized dielectrics has important implications for other material groups, including semiconductors and metals.

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Figure 1: Electron emission from Xe and SiO2 nanoparticles.
Figure 2: Dependence of the cutoffs in the electron emission spectra from SiO2 nanoparticles on laser intensity.
Figure 3: Calculated electron energy spectra.
Figure 4: Calculated electron emission from a SiO2 nanosphere in a few-cycle laser field.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge W. Siu and K. J. Schafer for making their TSDE data available to us, M. Kübel for helping with the laser intensity calibration, and S. Watson for providing experimental support. We are grateful for support by the Max-Planck Society, the EU through a Marie-Curie Reintegration Grant and the ATTOFEL network, and by the DFG through the Emmy-Noether program, the Cluster of Excellence: Munich Center for Advanced Photonics (MAP), SPP1391 and SFB 450 as well as BMBF through the network PhoNa and grant nos: 05KS7KEA and 05K10KE2. M.F.K. acknowledges support from KAIN within the KSU-MPQ collaboration. T.F. and C.P. gratefully acknowledge financial support from the DFG within SFB 652/2. I.A. is grateful for support from the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC-DAAD 2006/11586). The work of M.I.S. and M.F.K. has been supported by grants from the Chemical Sciences, Biosciences and Geosciences Division of the Office of the Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, US Department of Energy. M.I.S. acknowledges support by BaCaTeC and the US–Israel Binational Science Foundation.

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Author notes

  1. Sergey Zherebtsov, Thomas Fennel and Jürgen Plenge: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

    Sergey Zherebtsov, Irina Znakovskaya, Adrian Wirth, Oliver Herrwerth, Frederik Süßmann, Izhar Ahmad, Sergei A. Trushin, Stefan Karsch, Mark I. Stockman, Ferenc Krausz & Matthias F. Kling

  2. Institute of Physics, University of Rostock, Universitätsplatz 3, 18051 Rostock, Germany

    Thomas Fennel & Christian Peltz

  3. Physical Chemistry, Freie Universität Berlin, Takustr. 3, 14195 Berlin, Germany

    Jürgen Plenge, Egill Antonsson, Burkhard Langer, Christina Graf & Eckart Rühl

  4. Physics Department, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Am Coulombwall 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

    Vladimir Pervak, Stefan Karsch & Ferenc Krausz

  5. Max-Born-Institut, Max-Born Strasse 2A, D-12489 Berlin, Germany

    Marc J. J. Vrakking

  6. FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, Science Park 113, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Marc J. J. Vrakking

  7. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, USA

    Mark I. Stockman

  8. Department of Physics, J.R. Macdonald Laboratory, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA

    Matthias F. Kling

  9. King Abdullah Institute for Nanotechnology, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia

    Matthias F. Kling

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  1. Sergey Zherebtsov
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Contributions

E.R. and M.F.K. conceived the experiment; S.Z., J.P., E.A., I.Z. and B.L. performed the measurements; C.G. synthesized and characterized the SiO2 nanoparticles; S.Z., J.P., I.Z., M.J.J.V., M.I.S., F.K., E.R. and M.F.K. evaluated, analysed and interpreted the experimental data; F.S. and C.P. did FDTD calculations, and T.F. developed the theoretical model and performed the Monte Carlo trajectory calculations. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Thomas Fennel, Eckart Rühl or Matthias F. Kling.

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Zherebtsov, S., Fennel, T., Plenge, J. et al. Controlled near-field enhanced electron acceleration from dielectric nanospheres with intense few-cycle laser fields. Nature Phys 7, 656–662 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1983

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