All-optical attoclock for imaging tunnelling wavepackets

TL;DR

This paper introduces an all-optical method using Brunel radiation to image and analyze the dynamics of tunnelling wavepackets during laser-induced tunnelling, revealing reshaping and asymmetry effects.

Contribution

It proposes a novel all-optical detection technique combining photo-electron and light emission measurements to study tunnelling dynamics.

Findings

Identification of optical signatures of wavepacket reshaping.

Observation of time-reversal asymmetry in ionization.

Mapping delay and reshaping onto polarization properties of Brunel radiation.

Abstract

Recent experiments on measuring time-delays during tunnelling of cold atoms through an optically created potential barrier are reinvigorating the controversial debate regarding possible time-delays during light-induced tunnelling of an electron from an atom. Compelling theoretical and experimental arguments have been put forward to advocate opposite views, confirming or refuting the existence of finite tunnelling time delays. Yet, such a delay, whether present or not, is but a single quantity characterizing the tunnelling wavepacket; the underlying dynamics are richer. Here we propose to augment photo-electron detection in laser-induced tunnelling with detection of light emitted by the tunnelling electron -- the so-called Brunel radiation. Using a combination of single-color and two-color driving fields, we identify the all-optical signatures of the re-shaping of the tunnelling wavepacket as it emerges from the tunnelling barrier and moves away from the core. This reshaping includes not only an effective time-delay but also time-reversal asymmetry of the ionization process, which we describe theoretically and observe experimentally. We show how both delay and reshaping are mapped on the polarization properties of the Brunel radiation, with different harmonics behaving as different hands of a clock moving at different speeds. The all-optical detection paves the way to time-resolving optical tunnelling in condensed matter systems, e.g. tunnelling across bandgaps in solids, on the attosecond time-scale.