On-chip sampling of optical fields with attosecond resolution

Abstract

Time-domain sampling of arbitrary electric fields with sub-cycle resolution enables a complete time-frequency analysis of a system's response to electromagnetic illumination. This provides access to dynamic information that is not provided by absorption spectra alone, and has recently been shown through measurements in the infrared that time-domain optical-field sampling offers significant improvements with regard to molecular sensitivity and limits of detection compared to traditional spectroscopic methods. Despite the many scientific and technological motivations, time-domain, optical-field sampling systems operating in the visible to near-infrared spectral regions are seldom accessible, requiring large driving pulse energies, and large laser amplifier systems, bulky apparatuses, and vacuum environments. Here, we demonstrate an all-on-chip, optoelectronic device capable of sampling arbitrary, low-energy, near-infrared waveforms under ambient conditions. Our solid-state integrated detector uses optical-field-driven electron emission from resonant nanoantennas to achieve petahertz-level switching speeds by generating on-chip attosecond electron bursts. These bursts are used to probe the electric field of weak optical transients. We demonstrated our devices by sampling the electric field of a ~5 fJ, broadband near-infrared ultrafast laser pulse using a ~50 pJ near-infrared driving pulse. Our sampling measurements recovered the weak optical transient as well as localized plasmonic dynamics of the emitting nanoantennas $insitu$. This field-sampling device--with its compact footprint and low pulse-energy requirements--offers opportunities in a variety of applications, including: broadband time-domain spectroscopy in the molecular fingerprint region, time-domain analysis of nonlinear phenomena, and detailed studies of strong-field light-matter interactions.

References in corpus (11)

• Frequency comb spectroscopy
• Sub-cycle control of terahertz high-harmonic generation by dynamical Bloch oscillations
• Coherent, multi-heterodyne spectroscopy using stabilized optical frequency combs
• Attosecond control of electrons emitted from a nanoscale metal tip
• Real-time observation of interfering crystal electrons in high-harmonic generation
• Attosecond physics at the nanoscale
• Direct Frequency Comb Measurement of OD + CO -> DOCO Kinetics
• Perspective on petahertz electronics and attosecond nanoscopy
• Antiresonance-Like Behavior in Carrier-Envelope-Phase-Sensitive Optical-Field Photoemission from Plasmonic Nanoantennas
• Light Phase Detection with On-Chip Petahertz Electronic Networks
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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Tracing attosecond electron emission from a nanometric metal tip
• Attosecond light field synthesis for electron motion control
• Light-induced quantum tunnelling current in graphene
• High-Harmonic Generation in a Crystal Driven by Quantum Light
• Lightwave-Electronic Harmonic Frequency Mixing
• Uncovering Extreme Nonlinear Dynamics in Solids Through Time-Domain Field Analysis
• Attosecond physics in optical near fields
• Few-femtosecond phase-sensitive detection of infrared electric fields with a third-order nonlinearity
• Free-electron tomography of few-cycle optical waveforms
• PHz Electronic Device Design and Simulation for Waveguide-Integrated Carrier-Envelope Phase Detection
• Asymmetric double-pulse interferometric frequency-resolved optical gating for visible-wavelength time-domain spectroscopy