Abstract:
Field emission from nano antennas with few-cycle optical pulses is sensitive to the carrier-envelope phase. We demonstrate single shot carrier envelope phase detectors by optimizing the plasmonic response of large-scale nano antenna arrays opening up the development of electronic circuits operating at optical frequencies. Such nanoantenna arrays may also enable the generation of bunched electron beams from a cathodes driven by strong mid-infrared fields. We show a compact RF-gun capable of accelerating pC electron bunches to 180 keV with the potential to compression to less than 30 fs ready for injection into a follow-on Terahertz accelerator. We will also discuss progress in the design and test of various Terahertz guns and accelerator structures with the goal towards applications in ultrafast electron diffraction and coherent X-ray sources.
