Reconstruction of Nano-Plasmonic Excitations Using Ultrafast Transmission Electron Microscopy

Photon-induced Near-field Electron Microscopy (PINEM) in Ultrafast Transmission Electron Microscopes can be used to map the ultrafast evolution of optical near fields [1] and the structural dynamics of materials [2] on nanometer length scales using femtosecond electron pulses. In particular, PINEM enables mapping the responses of nanostructures to external stimuli [3, 4], which can be useful to address the yet elusive problem of comprehensively studying the dependence of plasmonic fields on the polarization state of the driving laser field.

In this presentation, we will introduce our recent work on the reconstruction of plasmonic near-fields under precisely tailored polarization states of the driving light. The main outcome of this study is a novel imaging technique – essentially based on energy-filtered PINEM and Lorentz TEM – enabling the extraction of complementary information (e.g., the phase) of plasmonic excitations at the nanoscale.

[1] Liebtrau, M. et al. Light Sci. Appl. 10, 82 (2021).

[2] Fu, X. et al. Nat. Commun. 11, 5770 (2020).

[3] Yurtsever, A. et al. Nano Lett. 12, 5027–5032 (2012).

[4] Harvey, T. R. et al. Nano Lett. 20, 4377–4383 (2020).