Field-resolved microscopy: true time-domain views of light-matter interaction (Dr. Nick Karpowicz)

(in-person)
Date: Nov 4, 2021
Time: 01:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Dr. Nick Karpowicz
CNR Nanotec, Institute of Nanotechnology, Lecce, Italien
Location: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics
Room: B 0.32

When charged particles move, they inscribe a history of their motion into an electromagnetic field, which carries it away from the origin. Recording various aspects of this light has been one of our main ways of investigating the fundamentals of nature for centuries, but directly observing the waveform has only become possible thanks to recent advances in ultrafast technology.

Now, several techniques have allowed us to record light waves with sub-cycle time resolution, even oscillations on the petahertz scale. An especially attractive technique is electro-optic sampling (EOS) -- long a staple of the terahertz range, which offers a spectacular degree of sensitivity across many octaves of bandwidth.
A new approach to EOS microscopy in plasmonic nanostructures provides a new way to achieve sub-cycle time resolution while simultaneously lifting the diffraction limit on spatial resolution. Arrays of field-resolving nanostructures provide a unique way to encode a high-resolution snapshot of local optical fields and transmit it into the far field.
The talk will explore the underlying physics of field detection and its implications, both for cutting edge studies of light-matter interaction and applications across diverse disciplines of research.