Terahertz Compression in Ultrafast Electron Microscopy for Breakthrough Time Resolution

• Applicant: Dr. Maxim Tsarev
• Subject Area: Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508851752

The building bricks of future electronics at frequencies of light (terahertz and petahertz) are nanometer-sized photonic devices in combination with ultrafast-response lattices such as graphene or MXenes. A profound understanding of such materials and their dynamics requires oscilloscopic measurement techniques that are capable of seeing electric and magnetic fields and atomic lattices in space and time.In this project, we plan to visualize optical fields with few-femtosecond resolution in time and nanometer resolution in space. To this end, we will develop a next-generation electron microscopy: By compressing laser-triggered electron pulses with single-cycle terahertz fields, we will for the first time obtain few-fs isolated electron pulses in a transmission electron microscope, ten to hundred times shorter than before. Using the so-created electron probes, we will perform proof-of-principle pump-probe experiments to resolve light fields in nanostructures and ultrafast lattice transformations in 2D-materials, in order to understand their field-driven dynamics as a basis for the design of future ultrafast devices and circuitry.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants