Femtosecond electrons probing currents and atomic structure in nanomaterials

Abstract

The investigation of ultrafast electronic and structural dynamics in low-dimensional systems like nanowires and two-dimensional materials requires femtosecond probes providing high spatial resolution and strong interaction with small volume samples. Low-energy electrons exhibit large scattering cross sections and high sensitivity to electric fields, but their pronounced dispersion during propagation in vacuum so far prevented their use as femtosecond probe pulses in time-resolved experiments. Employing a laser-triggered point-like source of either divergent or collimated electron wave packets, we developed a hybrid approach for femtosecond point projection microscopy and femtosecond low-energy electron diffraction. We investigate ultrafast electric currents in nanowires with sub-100 femtosecond temporal and few 10 nm spatial resolutions and demonstrate the potential of our approach for studying structural dynamics in crystalline single-layer materials.

18 pages, 4 figures, includes 8 pages supplementary information

References in corpus (4)

• The structure of suspended graphene sheets
• Attosecond control of electrons emitted from a nanoscale metal tip
• A Femtosecond Nanometer Free Electron Source
• A spatially and temporally localized sub-laser-cycle electron source

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• Scanning Ultrafast Electron Microscopy: A Novel Technique to Probe Photocarrier Dynamics with High Spatial and Temporal Resolutions
• Ultrafast Relativistic Electron Nanoprobes