English

Optical gating and streaking of free-electrons with attosecond precision

Optics 2017-06-07 v1

Abstract

In this paper we present proof of principle experiments of an optical gating concept for free electrons. We demonstrate a temporal resolution of 1.2+-0.3 fs via energy and transverse momentum modulation as a function of time. The scheme is based on the synchronous interaction between electrons and the near-field mode of a dielectric nano-grating excited by a femtosecond laser pulse with an optical period duration of 6.5 fs. The sub-optical cycle resolution demonstrated here is promising for use in laser-driven streak cameras for attosecond temporal characterization of bunched particle beams as well as time-resolved experiments with free-electron beams. We expect that 10 as temporal resolution will be achieved in the near future using such a scheme.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.1512.04394,
  title  = {Optical gating and streaking of free-electrons with attosecond precision},
  author = {Martin Kozak and Joshua McNeur and Kenneth J. Leedle and Norbert Schoenenberger and Alex Ruehl and Ingmar Hartl and James S. Harris and Robert L. Byer and Peter Hommelhoff},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1512.04394},
  year   = {2017}
}

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5 figures