Sub-cycle Nanotip Field Emission of Electrons Driven by Air Plasma Generated THz Pulses

Abstract

Terahertz pulses generated by two-color laser plasmas have reported peak field strengths exceeding MV/cm, and when illuminating metal nanotips the near-field enhancement at the tip apex should result in extremely high bunch charges and electron energies via sub-cycle cold field emission. Here, electron emission from tungsten nanotips driven by THz pulses generated by a long filament air-plasma are reported. Electron energies up to 1.1 keV and bunch charges up to 2x$10^5$ electrons per pulse were detected, well below values expected for peak field calculated via the time averaged Poynting vector. Investigations revealed a failure in the use of the time-averaged Poynting vector when applied to long filament THz pulses, due to spatio-temporal restructuring of the THz pulse in the focus. Accounting for this restructuring significantly reduces the field strength to approximately 160 ~kV/cm, consistent with the observed electron bunch charges, peak energies and their dependence on the tip position in the THz focus. Despite these findings, our results surpass previous THz plasma-driven electron generation by an order of magnitude in both electron energy and bunch charge and a path to increasing these by an additional order of magnitude by modification of the THz optics is proposed.