Nonlinear processes induced by the enhanced, evanescent field of surface plasmons excited by femtosecond laser pulses.

Evanescent fields of surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) above metal surfaces can reach 1-2 orders of magnitude higher, nearly atomic field strengths in comparison to the relatively weak exciting laser fields of a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser oscillator. We used these high plasmonic fields to study the characteristic SPP phenomena of intense field optics experimentally. It was found that both the intensity and the angular distribution of SPP emitted light depend nonlinearly on the exciting laser intensity in the higher-intensity, non-perturbative range of the interactions. These results are supported by our theory. At these strong excitations, an additional, depolarized, diffuse spectrum also appeared which can be attributed either to the fluorescence of Au, or to the non-equlibrium Planck radiation, originating from the fast cooling of the conduction electron cloud of Au excited by the femtosecond laser pulse.

Influence of the carrier-envelope phase of few-cycle pulses on ponderomotive surface-plasmon electron acceleration.

Control over basic processes through the electric field of a light wave can lead to new knowledge of fundamental light-matter interaction phenomena. We demonstrate, for the first time, that surface-plasmon (SP) electron acceleration can be coherently controlled through the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of an excitation optical pulse. Analysis indicates that the physical origin of the CEP sensitivity arises from the electron's ponderomotive interaction with the oscillating electromagnetic field of the SP wave. The ponderomotive electron acceleration mechanism provides sensitive (nJ energies), high-contrast, single-shot CEP measurement capability of few-cycle laser pulses.