Ultrafast nanofemto photoemission electron microscopy of vectorial plasmonic fields

Ultrafast microscopy takes advantage of photons and electrons to measure dynamics in matter on the fundamental space and time scales. The interferometric time-resolved two-photon photoelectron emission microscopy (ITR-2P-PEEM) can image and control the vectorial properties of light below the optical cycle time and length scales. At metal/vacuum interfaces light propagates as a surface plasmon polariton (SPP) field. On the nanometer spatial and femtosecond temporal (nanofemto) scales Poincaré engineering of topological spin and field textures can dress trivial metals through plasmonic spin–orbit interaction. Illuminating a plasmonic coupling metastructure with an ultrafast light pulse generates a topological plasmonic vortex, which is imaged in ITR-2P-PEEM experiment by recording a two-photon photoemission signal excited jointly with a delayed optical probe pulse. The control of pump-probe delay with attosecond precision and Fourier analysis of the SPP-optical field interference enables analysis of the vortex field into its Cartesian components with sub-optical cycle space–time resolution. Graphic abstract