The excitation of surface plasmons in metallic nanostructures by resonant ultrashort femtosecond light pulses produces interesting phenomena such as optical field nanolocalization, nanoscale electric field enhancement and ultrafast sub-femtosecond beating of the plasmon eigenmodes. Nonlinear two-photon photoemission electron microscopy has proven to be a powerful tool for spatiotemporal characterization of such effects on the nanoscale below the optical diffraction limit. As a step toward using intense, few-cycle 4 femtosecond laser pulses to excite and control surface plasmons, we report on the multiphoton-photoemission electron microscopy experiments on lithographically-fabricated gold nanostructures excited by these few-cycle laser pulses. In addition, the effects of the shape and size of silver plasmonic structures, as well as the polarization of the excitation source are examined in the two-photon photoemission induced by picosecond laser pulses. Potential approaches toward spatiotemporal control of lightfield nanolocalization are described.

Date Published: 9 October 2012
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 8457, Plasmonics: Metallic Nanostructures and Their Optical Properties X, 84571C (9 October 2012);

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8457:
Plasmonics: Metallic Nanostructures and Their Optical Properties X
Mark I. Stockman, Editor(s)