Real-time tracking of coherent oscillations of electrons in a nanodevice by photo-assisted tunnelling.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38351147.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-45564-w and PMC identifier 10864318.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Coherent collective oscillations of electrons excited in metallic nanostructures (localized surface plasmons) can confine incident light to atomic scales and enable strong light-matter interactions, which depend nonlinearly on the local field. Direct sampling of such collective electron oscillations in real-time is crucial to performing petahertz scale optical modulation, control, and readout in a quantum nanodevice. Here, we demonstrate real-time tracking of collective electron oscillations in an Au bowtie nanoantenna, by recording photo-assisted tunnelling currents generated by such oscillations in this quantum nanodevice. The collective electron oscillations show a noninstantaneous response to the driving laser fields with a T<sub>2</sub> decay time of nearly 8 femtoseconds. The contributions of linear and nonlinear electron oscillations in the generated tunnelling currents were precisely determined. A phase control of electron oscillations in the nanodevice is illustrated. Functioning in ambient conditions, the excitation, phase control, and read-out of coherent electron oscillations pave the way toward on-chip light-wave electronics in quantum nanodevices.