Transient lensing from a photoemitted electron gas imaged by ultrafast electron microscopy

Omid Zandi, Allan E. Sykes, Ryan D. Cornelius, Francis M. Alcorn, Brandon S. Zerbe, Phillip M. Duxbury, Bryan W. Reed and Renske M. van der Veen ()
Additional contact information
Omid Zandi: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Allan E. Sykes: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Ryan D. Cornelius: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Francis M. Alcorn: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Brandon S. Zerbe: Michigan State University
Phillip M. Duxbury: Michigan State University
Bryan W. Reed: Integrated Dynamic Electron Solutions, Inc. (IDES)
Renske M. van der Veen: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Understanding and controlling ultrafast charge carrier dynamics is of fundamental importance in diverse fields of (quantum) science and technology. Here, we create a three-dimensional hot electron gas through two-photon photoemission from a copper surface in vacuum. We employ an ultrafast electron microscope to record movies of the subsequent electron dynamics on the picosecond-nanosecond time scale. After a prompt Coulomb explosion, the subsequent dynamics is characterized by a rapid oblate-to-prolate shape transformation of the electron gas, and periodic and long-lived electron cyclotron oscillations inside the magnetic field of the objective lens. In this regime, the collective behavior of the oscillating electrons causes a transient, mean-field lensing effect and pronounced distortions in the images. We derive an analytical expression for the time-dependent focal length of the electron-gas lens, and perform numerical electron dynamics and probe image simulations to determine the role of Coulomb self-fields and image charges. This work inspires the visualization of cyclotron dynamics inside two-dimensional electron-gas materials and enables the elucidation of electron/plasma dynamics and properties that could benefit the development of high-brightness electron and X-ray sources.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16746-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-16746-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16746-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().