Ultrafast scanning electron microscope applied for studying the interaction between free electrons and optical near-fields of periodic nanostructures

Abstract

In this paper we describe an ultrafast scanning electron microscope setup developed for the research of inelastic scattering of electrons at optical near-fields of periodic dielectric nanostructures. Electron emission from the Schottky cathode is controlled by ultraviolet femtosecond laser pulses. The electron pulse duration at the interaction site is characterized via cross-correlation of the electrons with an infrared laser pulse that excites a synchronous periodic near-field on the surface of a silicon nanostructure. The lower limit of 410 fs is found in the regime of a single electron per pulse. The role of pulse broadening due to Coulomb interaction in multielectron pulses is investigated. The setup is used to demonstrate an increase of the interaction distance between the electrons and the optical near-fields by introducing a pulse-front-tilt to the infrared laser beam. Further we show the dependence of the final electron spectra on the resonance condition between the phase velocity of the optical near-field and the electron propagation velocity. The resonance is controlled by adjusting the initial electron energy/velocity and by introducing a linear chirp to the structure period allowing to increase the final electron energy gain up to a demonstrated 3.8 keV.

References in corpus (20)

• A Femtosecond Nanometer Free Electron Source
• Ultrafast transmission electron microscopy using a laser-driven field emitter: femtosecond resolution with a high coherence electron beam
• Dielectric Laser Acceleration
• Attosecond Electron Pulse Trains and Quantum State Reconstruction in Ultrafast Transmission Electron Microscopy
• Laser-based acceleration of non-relativistic electrons at a dielectric structure
• Compression of sub-relativistic space-charge-dominated electron bunches for single-shot femtosecond electron diffraction
• A spatially and temporally localized sub-laser-cycle electron source
• Strong-field above-threshold photoemission from sharp metal tips
• New electron source concept for single-shot sub-100 fs electron diffraction in the 100 keV range
• Ponderomotive generation and detection of attosecond free-electron pulse trains
• Laser-induced ultrafast electron emission from a field emission tip
• Ramsey-type phase control of free electron beams
• High-temporal-resolution electron microscopy for imaging ultrafast electron dynamics
• Inelastic ponderomotive scattering of electrons at a high-intensity optical travelling wave in vacuum
• Optical gating and streaking of free-electrons with attosecond precision
• A tip-based source of femtosecond electron pulses at 30keV
• Attosecond Control of Electron Beams at Dielectric and Absorbing Membranes
• Dielectric laser acceleration of electrons in the vicinity of single and double grating structures - theory and simulations
• Transverse and longitudinal characterization of electron beams using interaction with optical near-fields
• Design of racetrack ring resonator based dielectric laser accelerators

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Generation and Characterization of Attosecond Micro-Bunched Electron Pulse Trains via Dielectric Laser Acceleration
• Electron phase space control in photonic chip-based particle acceleration
• Alternating Phase Focusing for Dielectric Laser Acceleration
• Quantum-coherent light-electron interaction in an SEM
• Transverse Electron Beam Shaping with Light
• Dielectric-laser electron acceleration in a dual pillar grating with a distributed Bragg reflector
• Threedimensional Alternating-Phase Focusing for Dielectric-Laser Electron Accelerators
• Femtosecond laser-induced electron emission from nanodiamond-coated tungsten needle tips
• Reconfigurable Photonic Circuit for Controlled Power Delivery to Laser-Driven Accelerators on a Chip
• Nanosecond Photoemission near the Potential Barrier of a Schottky Emitter
• Temporal characterization of femtosecond electron pulses inside ultrafast scanning electron microscope
• Experimental considerations in electron beam transport on a nanophotonic chip using alternating phase focusing
• Generation of ultrashort ion pulses from ultrafast electron-stimulated desorption