MBI Colloquium: Ultrafast electron control – Inside of graphene, at the surface of needle tips, and in a nanophotonics-structured vacuum

Ultrafast electron control – Inside of graphene, at the surface of needle tips, and in a nanophotonics-structured vacuum

Prof. Dr. Peter Hommelhoff | Universität Erlangen

Ultrafast electron control is at the core of various fundamental physical effects and emerging technological applications. In this talk, I will show a few new results circling around this theme. In the first part, I will show that electrons can be strongly driven inside of the 2-d semimetal graphene fully coherently, which allowed us observe subsequent coherent Landau-Zener transitions (Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interferometry). Based on this work, we can now classify five excitation regimes in a driven two-level system, naturally connecting Rabi and Landau-Zener physics. In the second part, I will show how two-color strongfield photoemission from metal needle tips yields deep insights to strongfield ionization and propagation dynamics. The last part of the talk will focus on our quest to build the analogue of a classical radiofrequency particle accelerator, only that it is driven at optical frequencies. Next to acceleration, deflection and focusing with purely optical forces in nanophotonic structures, we now have complex electron phase space control, allowing us to implement transport and acceleration of electrons over, in principle, infinite length with hardly any particle loss – the basis for an accelerator.

If you are interested, but not an institute member:
Please contact Ute.Schlichting@mbi-berlin.de to get the login dates for this event.