Attosecond coherent control of free-electron wave functions using semi-infinite light fields

Nature Communications
G M VanacoreF Carbone

Abstract

Light-electron interaction is the seminal ingredient in free-electron lasers and dynamical investigation of matter. Pushing the coherent control of electrons by light to the attosecond timescale and below would enable unprecedented applications in quantum circuits and exploration of electronic motions and nuclear phenomena. Here we demonstrate attosecond coherent manipulation of a free-electron wave function, and show that it can be pushed down to the zeptosecond regime. We make a relativistic single-electron wavepacket interact in free-space with a semi-infinite light field generated by two light pulses reflected from a mirror and delayed by fractions of the optical cycle. The amplitude and phase of the resulting electron-state coherent oscillations are mapped in energy-momentum space via momentum-resolved ultrafast electron spectroscopy. The experimental results are in full agreement with our analytical theory, which predicts access to the zeptosecond timescale by adopting semi-infinite X-ray pulses.

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Citations

May 8, 2019·Nature Materials·Jun Yuan
Jul 17, 2019·Nature Materials·Albert PolmanF Javier García de Abajo
Sep 29, 2019·Nature Methods·Osip SchwartzHolger Müller
Aug 4, 2020·Physical Review Letters·Renwen YuF Javier García de Abajo
Feb 29, 2020·Physical Review Letters·Avraham Gover, Amnon Yariv
Mar 2, 2019·Physical Review Letters·Nicholas RiveraIdo Kaminer
Feb 7, 2019·Nature Communications·Nahid TalebiPeter A van Aken
Jun 5, 2020·Nature·Kangpeng WangIdo Kaminer
Aug 4, 2020·Physical Review Letters·Andrea Konečná, F Javier García de Abajo
Nov 21, 2020·Physical Review Letters·Yuya Morimoto, Peter Baum
Oct 31, 2020·Physical Review Letters·Uwe NiedermayerOliver Boine-Frankenheim
Mar 12, 2021·Science Advances·A Ben HayunI Kaminer
May 14, 2020·Nano Letters·Joel D Cox, F Javier García de Abajo
Mar 17, 2021·ACS Nano·Valerio Di GiulioF Javier García de Abajo
Apr 10, 2021·Physical Review Letters·F Javier García de Abajo, Andrea Konečná
Apr 17, 2021·Light, Science & Applications·Matthias LiebtrauClaus Ropers
May 2, 2021·Science Advances·Ofer KfirClaus Ropers
Jun 26, 2021·Physical Review Letters·Ron RuimyIdo Kaminer
Jul 3, 2021·Physical Review Letters·Bin ZhangAvraham Gover
Jan 25, 2019·Nano Letters·Bin ChenChennupati Jagadish
Aug 28, 2021·Science·Raphael DahanIdo Kaminer
Dec 24, 2021·Nature·Jan-Wilke HenkeTobias J Kippenberg
Aug 17, 2021··Gabriele BerrutoIdo Kaminer

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
electron microscopy
X-ray
electron scattering
electron capture

Software Mentioned

PINEM

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