Ultrafast Laser-Induced Electron Emission from Field Emission Tips

Abstract

We describe a laser-triggered electron source based on a field emission tip. Numerical results indicate that the electron emission times can be sub-femtosecond. We are exploring applications of this source to ultrafast SEM, and have begun characterization of emission mechanisms in an alternate tip material, hafnium carbide. Here we observe a higher efficiency in laser emission and, at high power, non-additive scaling as the number of incident laser pulses per second is doubled.