Abstract

Over the past two decades, plasmon nano-optics has inspired the design of high-efficiency photovoltaics, light-driven catalytic reactors, and optical metamaterials with tailored light scattering properties. Yet, true 3D nanoscale reconstruction of plasmonic near fields that lie at the basis of these applications has remained elusive. I will present our recent work on cathodoluminescence (CL) microscopy using 1-30 keV electrons in a scanning electron microscope to reconstruct 3D plasmonic near fields. By collecting coherent radiation from plasmon excitation and analyzing interference patterns, we retrieve plasmon phase and amplitude in 3D. The plasmon interferometry technique enables a novel form of metrology for the reconstruction of 3D geometries with potential applications in the tomography of electronic integrated circuits. Finally, we report our most recent work on the shaping of quantum mechanical wavepackets of high-energy electrons with intense laser light, enabling the creation of split and chirped electron wavepackets for a new class of materials spectroscopies.

Biography



Albert Polman is research group leader at AMOLF, an institute of the national science counsel NWO in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is professor of Photonic Materials for Photovoltaics at the University of Amsterdam and chairs the board of the national research, innovation and industrial development program SolarNL. Polman’s research group focuses on nanophotovoltaics, the study of light management at the nanoscale to realize ultra-high efficiency solar cells. The group also designs optical metasurfaces for analog optical processing and develops cathodoluminescence spectroscopy as a super-resolution imaging technique for nanophotonics. Polman has won several awards for his work, was awarded three ERC Advanced Grants, and is member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and the Netherlands Academy of Engineering. He is co-founder of Delmic BV that brings an instrument for cathodoluminescence spectroscopy on the market that was developed in his group