Abstract
We demonstrate an on-chip, optoelectronic device capable of sampling arbitrary, low-energy, near-infrared waveforms under ambient conditions with sub-optical-cycle resolution. Our detector uses field-driven photoemission from resonant nanoantennas to create attosecond electron bursts that probe the electric field of weak optical waveforms. Using these devices, we sampled the electric fields of ~5 fJ (6.4 MV m−1), few-cycle, near-infrared waveforms using ~50 pJ (0.64 GV m−1) near-infrared driving pulses. Beyond sampling these weak optical waveforms, our measurements directly reveal the localized plasmonic dynamics of the emitting nanoantennas in situ. Applications include broadband time-domain spectroscopy of molecular fingerprints from the visible region through the infrared, time-domain analysis of nonlinear phenomena and detailed investigations of strong-field light–matter interactions.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
All data are available in the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/qnngroup/On-chip-sampling-of-optical-fields-with-attosecond-resolution---Data-Analysis.
Code availability
All code is available in the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/qnngroup/On-chip-sampling-of-optical-fields-with-attosecond-resolution---Data-Analysis.
Change history
06 May 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00821-y
References
Tonouchi, M. Cutting-edge terahertz technology. Nat. Photonics 1, 97–105 (2007).
Neu, J. & Schmuttenmaer, C. A. Tutorial: an introduction to terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). J. Appl. Phys. 124, 231101 (2018).
Bonvalet, A. et al. Femtosecond infrared emission resulting from coherent charge oscillations in quantum wells. Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4392–4395 (1996).
Schubert, O. et al. Sub-cycle control of terahertz high-harmonic generation by dynamical Bloch oscillations. Nat. Photonics 8, 119–123 (2014).
Riek, C. et al. Direct sampling of electric-field vacuum fluctuations. Science 350, 420–423 (2015).
Hohenleutner, M. et al. Real-time observation of interfering crystal electrons in high-harmonic generation. Nature 523, 572–575 (2015).
Lépine, F., Ivanov, M. Y. & Vrakking, M. J. J. Attosecond molecular dynamics: fact or fiction? Nat. Photonics 8, 195–204 (2014).
Schultze, M. et al. Controlling dielectrics with the electric field of light. Nature 493, 75–78 (2013).
Schiffrin, A. et al. Optical-field-induced current in dielectrics. Nature 493, 70–74 (2013).
Sederberg, S. et al. Attosecond optoelectronic field measurement in solids. Nat. Commun. 11, 430 (2020).
Pupeza, I. et al. Field-resolved infrared spectroscopy of biological systems. Nature 577, 52–59 (2020).
Park, S. B. et al. Direct sampling of a light wave in air. Optica 5, 402–408 (2018).
Cho, W. et al. Temporal characterization of femtosecond laser pulses using tunneling ionization in the UV, visible, and mid-IR ranges. Sci. Rep. 9, 16067 (2019).
Keiber, S. et al. Electro-optic sampling of near-infrared waveforms. Nat. Photonics 10, 159–162 (2016).
Itatani, J. et al. Attosecond streak camera. Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 173903 (2002).
Kienberger, R. et al. Atomic transient recorder. Nature 427, 817–821 (2004).
Sansone, G. et al. Isolated single-cycle attosecond pulses. Science 314, 443–446 (2006).
Krausz, F. & Stockman, M. I. Attosecond metrology: from electron capture to future signal processing. Nat. Photonics 8, 205–213 (2014).
Dombi, P. et al. Strong-field nano-optics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 92, 025003 (2020).
Krüger, M., Lemell, C., Wachter, G., Burgdörfer, J. & Hommelhoff, P. Attosecond physics phenomena at nanometric tips. J. Phys. B 51, 172001 (2018).
Schoetz, J. et al. Perspective on petahertz electronics and attosecond nanoscopy. ACS Photonics 6, 3057–3069 (2019).
Ciappina, M. F. et al. Attosecond physics at the nanoscale. Rep. Prog. Phys. 80, 054401 (2017).
Stockman, M. I. et al. Roadmap on plasmonics. J. Opt. 20, 043001 (2018).
Ludwig, M. et al. Sub-femtosecond electron transport in a nanoscale gap. Nat. Phys. 16, 341–345 (2020).
Putnam, W. P., Hobbs, R. G., Keathley, P. D., Berggren, K. K. & Kärtner, F. X. Optical-field-controlled photoemission from plasmonic nanoparticles. Nat. Phys. 13, 335–339 (2017).
Keathley, P. D. et al. Vanishing carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive response in optical-field photoemission from plasmonic nanoantennas. Nat. Phys. 15, 1128–1133 (2019).
Krüger, M., Schenk, M. & Hommelhoff, P. Attosecond control of electrons emitted from a nanoscale metal tip. Nature 475, 78–81 (2011).
Yang, Y. et al. Light phase detection with on-chip petahertz electronic networks. Nat. Commun. 11, 3407 (2020).
Ludwig, M. et al. Active control of ultrafast electron dynamics in plasmonic gaps using an applied bias. Phys. Rev. B 101, 241412 (2020).
Gomer, R. Field Emission and Field Ionization, Vol. 34 (Harvard Univ. Press, 1961).
Rybka, T. et al. Sub-cycle optical phase control of nanotunnelling in the single-electron regime. Nat. Photonics 10, 667–670 (2016).
Yudin, G. L. & Ivanov, M. Y. Nonadiabatic tunnel ionization: looking inside a laser cycle. Phys. Rev. A 64, 013409 (2001).
Yalunin, S. V., Gulde, M. & Ropers, C. Strong-field photoemission from surfaces: theoretical approaches. Phys. Rev. B 84, 195426 (2011).
Fowler, R. H. & Nordheim, L. Electron emission in intense electric fields. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 119, 173–181 (1928).
Bunkin, F. V. & Fedorov, M. V. Cold emission of electrons from surface of a metal in a strong radiation field. Sov. Phys. JETP 21, 896–899 (1965).
Putnam, W. P. et al. Few-cycle, carrier–envelope-phase-stable laser pulses from a compact supercontinuum source. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 36, A93–A97 (2019).
Anderson, A., Deryckx, K. S., Xu, X. G., Steinmeyer, G. & Raschke, M. B. Few-femtosecond plasmon dephasing of a single metallic nanostructure from optical response function reconstruction by interferometric frequency resolved optical gating. Nano Lett. 10, 2519–2524 (2010).
Picqué, N. & Hänsch, T. W. Frequency comb spectroscopy. Nat. Photonics 13, 146–157 (2019).
Coddington, I., Swann, W. C. & Newbury, N. R. Coherent multiheterodyne spectroscopy using stabilized optical frequency combs. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 013902 (2008).
Bjork, B. J. et al. Direct frequency comb measurement of OD + CO → DOCO kinetics. Science 354, 444–448 (2016).
Kowligy, A. S. et al. Infrared electric field sampled frequency comb spectroscopy. Sci. Adv. 5, eaaw8794 (2019).
Keldysh, L. V. Ionization in the field of a strong electromagnetic wave. Sov. Phys. JETP 20, 1307–1314 (1965).
Sell, A., Krauss, G., Scheu, R., Huber, R. & Leitenstorfer, A. 8-fs pulses from a compact Er:fiber system: quantitative modeling and experimental implementation. Opt. Express 17, 1070–1077 (2009).
Birge, J. R., Ell, R. & Kärtner, F. X. Two-dimensional spectral shearing interferometry for few-cycle pulse characterization. Opt. Lett. 31, 2063–2065 (2006).
Turchetti, M. et al. Impact of DC bias on weak optical-field-driven electron emission in nano-vacuum-gap detectors. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 38, 1009–1016 (2021).
Johnson, P. B. & Christy, R. W. Optical constants of the noble metals. Phys. Rev. B 6, 4370–4379 (1972).
Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award numbers FA9550-19-1-0065 and FA9550-18-1-0436. F.X.K. acknowledges support by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) through the Synergy Grant ‘Frontiers in Attosecond X-ray Science: Imaging and Spectroscopy’ (AXSIS) (609920) and by the Cluster of Excellence ‘CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter’ of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)—EXC 2056—project ID 390715994. This work was also partially supported by a seed grant provided by SENSE.nano, a centre of excellence powered by MIT.nano, as well as the PIER Hamburg–MIT Program. We thank M. Colangelo and J. Simonaitis for their scientific discussion and edits to the manuscript. We thank N. Abedzadeh for taking photos of the chip.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
F.R., M.R.B. and P.D.K. conceived the experiments. Y.Y. and D.C.M. simulated the optical response of the devices. M.T. fabricated the devices. M.R.B., F.R. and M.T. performed the experiments with assistance from P.D.K. The theory was derived by F.R. who also and simulated the results with input from P.D.K., M.R.B. and W.P.P. The data were analysed by F.R. and M.R.B. with input from P.D.K., W.P.P., M.T. and Y.Y. The first draft of the manuscript and Supplementary Information were written by M.R.B. and F.R. with substantial contributions from M.T., Y.Y., P.D.K. and W.P.P. Input and feedback throughout the process was provided by K.K.B. and F.X.K. All authors contributed to the writing and editing of the manuscript.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare that a patent application has been filed based on the devices described in this manuscript.
Additional information
Peer review information Nature Photonics thanks Daniele Brida, Peter Hommelhoff and Nick Karpowicz for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figs. 1–11, discussion and refs. 1–6.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bionta, M.R., Ritzkowsky, F., Turchetti, M. et al. On-chip sampling of optical fields with attosecond resolution. Nat. Photonics 15, 456–460 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00792-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00792-0
This article is cited by
-
Unconventional light - matter interaction in the response-time region of unionized bound electrons
Applied Physics B (2024)
-
Carrier-envelope phase on-chip scanner and control of laser beams
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Tracing attosecond electron emission from a nanometric metal tip
Nature (2023)
-
Few-femtosecond phase-sensitive detection of infrared electric fields with a third-order nonlinearity
Communications Physics (2023)
-
Dynamic optical response of solids following 1-fs-scale photoinjection
Nature (2023)