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Sub-femtosecond electron transport in a nanoscale gap

Nature Physics volume 16, pages 341–345 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The strong fields associated with few-cycle pulses can drive highly nonlinear phenomena, allowing the direct control of electrons in condensed matter systems. In this context, by employing near-infrared single-cycle pulse pairs, we measure interferometric autocorrelations of the ultrafast currents induced by optical field emission at the nanogap of a single plasmonic nanocircuit. The dynamics of this ultrafast electron nanotransport depends on the precise temporal field profile of the optical driving pulse. Current autocorrelations are acquired with sub-femtosecond temporal resolution as a function of both pulse delay and absolute carrier-envelope phase. Quantitative modelling of the experiments enables us to monitor the spatiotemporal evolution of the electron density and currents induced in the system and to elucidate the physics underlying the electron transfer driven by strong optical fields in plasmonic gaps. Specifically, we clarify the interplay between the carrier-envelope phase of the driving pulse, plasmonic resonance and quiver motion.

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Fig. 1: Driving ultrafast currents in a nanocircuit with single-cycle near-infrared pulses.
Fig. 2: Interferometric current autocorrelations dependent on the CEP of the driving pulses.
Fig. 3: Time-dependent calculations of the current density driven by the electric field of the laser pulses.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code and algorithms that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

D.B. and A.L. acknowledge support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the Emmy Noether programme (BR 5030/1-1) and the collaborative research centre SFB 767. D.B. acknowledges support from the European Research Council through grant no. 819871 (UpTEMPO). G.A. acknowledges project PI2017-30 of the Departmento de Educación, Política Lingüística y Cultura of the Basque Government, and G.A. and J.A. acknowledge funding from project FIS2016-80174-P of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities MICINN, as well as grant IT1164-19 for consolidated university groups of the Basque Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Markus Ludwig, Felix Ritzkowsky, Tobias Rybka, Alfred Leitenstorfer & Daniele Brida

  2. Centro de Física de Materiales, Centro Mixto CSIC-UPV/EHU and Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain

    Garikoitz Aguirregabiria & Javier Aizpurua

  3. Institut des Sciences Moléculaires d′Orsay – UMR 8214, CNRS–Université Paris Sud, Orsay, France

    Dana Codruta Marinica & Andrei G. Borisov

  4. Physics and Materials Science Research Unit, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

    Daniele Brida

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Contributions

J.A., A.G.B., A.L. and D.B. conceived the project. A.L. and D.B. supervised the experimental activity. M.L., F.R. and T.R. fabricated the nanostructures, developed the set-up and performed the measurements. J.A. and A.G.B. coordinated the theoretical modelling. G.A., D.C.M. and A.G.B. developed the theory simulations. All authors contributed to the discussion of the data and to writing the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniele Brida.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review statement Nature Physics thanks Christian Nijhuis, Olga Smirnova and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) 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 discussion with Supplementary Figs. 1–14.

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Source Data Fig. 1

Zip archive with the files (txt) of the data plotted in Fig. 1.

Source Data Fig. 2

Zip archive with the files (txt) of the data plotted in Fig. 2.

Source Data Fig. 3

Zip archive with the files (txt) of the data plotted in Fig. 3.

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Ludwig, M., Aguirregabiria, G., Ritzkowsky, F. et al. Sub-femtosecond electron transport in a nanoscale gap. Nat. Phys. 16, 341–345 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0745-8

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