Cross-process interference in single-cycle electron emission from metal needle tips
Optics
2025-09-03 v1
Abstract
Though interference from different emission channels enabled a deeper understanding of strong-field photoemission in atoms and molecules, it remained out of reach for solids. Here, we explore metal needle tips under single-cycle pulses via classical trajectories extended by quantum diffusion and interference and numerical solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation. We find interference of direct and backscattered electrons with fringe pattern encoding sub-cycle information on birth times and near-field driven acceleration dynamics, opening routes for ultrafast solid-state metrology.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.01524,
title = {Cross-process interference in single-cycle electron emission from metal needle tips},
author = {Anne Herzig and Peter Hommelhoff and Eleftherios Goulielmakis and Thomas Fennel and Lennart Seiffert},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.01524},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 figures