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A new quantum clock for measuring photoemission delay times

Daehyun You, Kiyoshi Ueda, Грызлова Елена Владимировна, Alexei N. Grum-Grzhimailo, Maria M. Popova, Ekaterina I. Staroselskaya, Oyunbileg Tugs, Yuki Orimo, Takeshi Sato, Kenichi L. Ishikawa, Paolo Antonio Carpeggiani, Tamás Csizmadia, Miklós Füle, G. Sansone, Praveen Kumar Maroju, Alessandro D’Elia, Tommaso Mazza, Michael Meyer, Carlo Callegari, Michele Di Fraia, Oksana Plekan, Robert Richter, Luca Giannessi, E. Allaria, Giovanni De Ninno, Mauro Gaetano Trovò, L. Badano, B. Diviacco, David Gauthier, Najmeh Mirian, Giuseppe Maria Penco, Primož Rebernik Ribič, Simone Spampinati, Carlo Spezzani, G. Gaio, Kevin Charles Prince

Published Jul 31, 2019• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The age of attosecond physics was ushered in by the invention of methods for probing phenomena on a time scale less than femtoseconds [F. Krausz, M. Ivanov, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 163 (2009)]. In photoemission, the Eisenbud-Wigner-Smith (EWS) time delay [R. Pazourek, S. Nagele, J. Burgdorfer, Rev. Mod. Phys. 87, 765 (2015)] is the interval between photon annihilation and emission of the electron, usually measured in attoseconds ($10^{-18}$ seconds), and varies with the kinetic energy and the angle of emission of the electron wave packet. We present a new interferometric method of measurement, using two phase-locked Extreme Ultraviolet pulses of frequency $\omega$ and $2\omega$, from a Free-Electron Laser. Phase differences between one- and two-photon ionization channels are extracted, and used to derive the relative EWS delay for one- and two-photon ionization of neon as a function of emission angle. Agreement with theory is excellent. Competing techniques require the use of an IR field, which necessitates corrections, but our method is correction-free. This new quantum clock is a powerful tool for investigating ultrafast processes in atoms and molecules.

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The age of attosecond physics was ushered in by the invention of methods for probing phenomena on a time scale less than femtoseconds [F. Krausz, M. Ivanov, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 163 (2009)]. In photoemission, the Eisenbud-Wigner-Smith (EWS) time delay [R. Pazourek, S. Nagele, J. Burgdorfer, Rev. Mod. Phys. 87, 765 (2015)] is the interval between photon annihilation and emission of the electron, usually measured in attoseconds (10−1810^{-18}10−18 seconds), and varies with the kinetic energy and the angle of emission of the electron wave packet. We present a new interferometric method of measurement, using two phase-locked Extreme Ultraviolet pulses of frequency ω\omegaω and 2ω2\omega2ω, from a Free-Electron Laser. Phase differences between one- and two-photon ionization channels are extracted, and used to derive the relative EWS delay for one- and two-photon ionization of neon as a function of emission angle. Agreement with theory is excellent. Competing techniques require the use of an IR field, which necessitates corrections, but our method is correction-free. This new quantum clock is a powerful tool for investigating ultrafast processes in atoms and molecules.
Single-photon ionization of a hydrogen atom irradiated by two time-delayed isolated attosecond pulses is theoretically investigated by numerically solving the fully three-dimensional time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation. It is demonstrated that the analysis of the angular-resolved electron energy spectrum, showing a complex interference pattern, allows one to completely retrieve the difference between the energy-dependent phases of the electron wave packets generated by the two delayed attosecond pulses. Moreover, it is shown that in the case of a pair of excitation pulses with the same chirp rate, the proposed interferometric technique can be used to measure the difference between the carrier envelope phase values of two attosecond pulses.
The advent of the ultrafast laser pulse provides the powerful and efficient tool for probing the ultrafast electron dynamics in atoms and molecules. The various nonlinear process induced by the laser-matter interaction allows one to obtain the electron motion information on the sub-femtosecond time scale. A series of the ultrafast spectroscopic technique, such as attosecond streak camera, attosecond transient absorption spectrum, and etc., have been successfully applied to the probe of electron dynamics in atoms, molecules, and solids. Using two-color field is one of the significant methods to achieve the coherent control and exploring of the electron motion. This paper summarizes recent research activities in the field of the atomic and molecular ultrafast process investigated in State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, including the detection of the electron dynamics of the multi-bound states, measurement of the carrier envelope phase (CEP) and the phase of the attosecond pulse, and the ultrafast electron control with the THz/UV and MIR/IR field. To measure the dynamics of the multi-bound states, a broadband attosecond pulse can be used to ionize the electrons after it is excited by the pump laser. By changing the delay between the pump laser and the attosecond pulse, the measured electrons ionized by the broadband xuv attosecond pulse can present the multi-bound states dynamics simultaneously. The XUV/IR scheme is popularly used in attosecond dynamics measurement. But usually, the IR field is not very strong. We find that, if the IR field is strong enough to induce the above threshold ionization (ATI), the interference between the ATI electron and the electron from XUV pulse can be used to measure the CEP of the attosecond XUV pulse. Besides, if the electron ionized by attosecond pulse can be pushed back to the nuclei, the emission from the recombination can be used to determine the spectral phase of the attosecond pulse, which is an all-optical measurement. We also investigate the two color scheme of THz/UV and MIR/IR fields. With THz/UV two color scheme, very high electron localization can be achieved duration molecular dissociation when we use the UV pulse to excite the electron and the THz pulse to control the following electron movement. When we use the MIR/IR field to control the electron motion during the high harmonic generation, the recollision can be greatly decreased and the single attosecond pulse can be produced with multi-cycle MIR laser field.
Laser-dressed photoemission spectroscopy has established itself as the gold standard of attosecond temporal metrology.In this technique, the attosecond structure of an extreme-ultraviolet pulse is retrieved from the wave function of the electron wave packet released during photoionization.Here, we show that this electron wave packet should rather be described using the density matrix formalism, thus allowing one to account for all processes that can affect its coherence, from the attosecond pulse generation to the photoemission and the measurement processes.Using this approach, we reconstruct experimentally a partially coherent electron wave packet with a purity of 0.11 (1 for full coherence).Comparison with theoretical models then allows us to identify the origins of this decoherence and to overcome several limitations such as beam-line instabilities or spectrometer resolution.Furthermore, we show numerically how this method gives access to the coherence and eigencomponents of complex photoelectron wave packets.It thus goes beyond the current measurement of photoionization time delays and provides a general framework for the analysis and understanding of complex photoemission processes.
Attosecond chronoscopy enables the exploration of correlated electron dynamics in real time. One key observable of attosecond physics is the determination of "time zero" of photoionization, the time delay with which the wave packet of the ionized electron departs from the ionic core. This observable has become accessible by experimental advances in attosecond streaking and reconstruction of attosecond beating by interference of two-photon transitions (RABBIT) techniques. In this Letter, we explore photoionization time delays by strong extreme ultraviolet fields beyond the linear-response limit. We identify novel signatures in time delays signifying strong coupling between atoms and light fields and the light-field dressing of the ion. As a prototypical case, we study the interelectronic coherence and entanglement in helium driven by a strong extreme ultraviolet field. By the numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation in its full dimensionality, we show that the time delay of the photoionized electron allows one to monitor the ultrafast variations of coherence dynamics and entanglement in real time.
Abstract Attosecond chronoscopy is central to the understanding of ultrafast electron dynamics from gas to condensed phase with attosecond temporal resolution. It has, however, not yet been able to determine the timing of individual partial waves, and steering their contribution has been a substantial challenge. Here, we develop a polarization-skewed attosecond chronoscopy to reveal their roles from the angle-resolved photoionization phase shifts in rare gas atoms. By scanning the relative polarization angle between an extreme-ultraviolet attosecond pulse train and a phase-locked near-infrared laser field serving as a partial wave meter, we break the cylindrical symmetry and observe an emission direction dependent phase shift in the photoionized electron momenta. The experimental observations are well supported by numerical simulations using the R-matrix with time-dependence method, and by analytical analysis using the soft-photon approximation. Our symmetry-resolved, partial-wave analysis identifies the transition rate and phase shifts of each individual ionization pathway in the attosecond photoelectron emission dynamics. Our findings provide critical insights into the ubiquitous attosecond optical timer and the underlying attosecond photoionization dynamics, thereby offer new perspectives for the control, manipulation, and exploration of ultrafast electron dynamics in complex systems.
Quantitative control and measurement of quantum entanglement are essential for advancing quantum technologies. Photoionization induced by ultrashort laser pulses provides a unique platform for studying entanglement between photoelectrons and residual ions, representing one of the most intriguing quantum phenomena in attosecond physics. Although extensive studies have focused on the coherence properties within either the emitted electrons or the ions individually, the electron-ion entanglement has remained largely unexplored. In this work, we bridge this gap by investigating the resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization of argon atoms driven by two time-delayed ultrashort ultraviolet pulses. Employing state-of-the-art first-principles multi-electron simulations, we demonstrate the ability to reconstruct and precisely manipulate the purity of electron quantum states through detailed analysis of the photoelectron angular distributions. Our results reveal distinct scattering-phase differences among various electron configurations within the same partial wave channel, providing unequivocal evidence of electron-ion correlation and entanglement. With the fast development of free-electron lasers, this study establishes an experimentally feasible framework for directly controlling quantum entanglement in ultrafast ionization processes, offering new insights and powerful methodologies for exploring complex electron dynamics in many-electron systems.