Laser streaking of free electrons at 25 keV

Recording electronic motion in atomic systems requires attosecond and picometre resolutions. Current attosecond technology provides photon pulses up to an energy range of 100 eV, with wavelengths far too long to access structures on the atomic scale. In contrast, ultrashort free-electron pulses with sub-Angstrom de Broglie wavelengths offer the potential to resolve sub-atomic structures. Here, we demonstrate an optical-field-driven streak camera for their temporal characterization. Our concept is to have an electron beam and a laser beam intersect at an ultrathin metal mirror, and potentially offers attosecond resolution. The technique will be instrumental in advancing ultrafast electron diffraction towards ever higher temporal resolution in the pursuit of the long-term goal of sub-atomic four-dimensional imaging. As a first application, we study the influence of electron-electron interactions on the characteristics of few-electron pulses.