Abstract
Time-domain sampling of arbitrary electric fields with sub-cycle resolution enables a complete time-frequency analysis of a system's response to electromagnetic illumination. This provides access to dynamic information that is not provided by absorption spectra alone, and has recently been shown through measurements in the infrared that time-domain optical-field sampling offers significant improvements with regard to molecular sensitivity and limits of detection compared to traditional spectroscopic methods. Despite the many scientific and technological motivations, time-domain, optical-field sampling systems operating in the visible to near-infrared spectral regions are seldom accessible, requiring large driving pulse energies, and large laser amplifier systems, bulky apparatuses, and vacuum environments. Here, we demonstrate an all-on-chip, optoelectronic device capable of sampling arbitrary, low-energy, near-infrared waveforms under ambient conditions. Our solid-state integrated detector uses optical-field-driven electron emission from resonant nanoantennas to achieve petahertz-level switching speeds by generating on-chip attosecond electron bursts. These bursts are used to probe the electric field of weak optical transients. We demonstrated our devices by sampling the electric field of a ~5 fJ, broadband near-infrared ultrafast laser pulse using a ~50 pJ near-infrared driving pulse. Our sampling measurements recovered the weak optical transient as well as localized plasmonic dynamics of the emitting nanoantennas $in~situ$. This field-sampling device--with its compact footprint and low pulse-energy requirements--offers opportunities in a variety of applications, including: broadband time-domain spectroscopy in the molecular fingerprint region, time-domain analysis of nonlinear phenomena, and detailed studies of strong-field light-matter interactions.
Highlights
We demonstrate an on-chip, optoelectronic device capable of sampling arbitrary, low-energy, near-infrared waveforms under ambient conditions with sub-optical-cycle resolution
It was recently shown that sub-cycle field sampling of the free-induction decays of biological systems can provide an order of magnitude reduction in the limits of detection and improved molecular sensitivity compared to traditional frequency-domain spectroscopic methods[11]
Beyond demonstrating the feasibility of sub-cycle field sampling of petahertz-scale frequencies, our results reveal in situ dynamical properties of the interaction of the driving optical-field waveform with the plasmonic nanoantennas
Summary
We demonstrate an on-chip, optoelectronic device capable of sampling arbitrary, low-energy, near-infrared waveforms under ambient conditions with sub-optical-cycle resolution. Time-domain sampling of arbitrary electric fields with sub-cycle resolution enables complementary timefrequency analyses of a system’s electromagnetic response Such time-frequency analyses provide dynamic information that is not furnished by absorption spectra alone. It was recently shown that sub-cycle field sampling of the free-induction decays of biological systems can provide an order of magnitude reduction in the limits of detection and improved molecular sensitivity compared to traditional frequency-domain spectroscopic methods[11 ]. Despite these compelling results, scaling such techniques into the near-IR and visible spectral regions has remained challenging. There is no compact and integratable sub-cycle optical field sampling technology with the bandwidth and field sensitivity required for real-world applications of interest in the visible to near-IR spectral regions
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