Spatiotemporal sampling of near-petahertz vortex fields

Measuring the field of visible light with high spatial resolution has been challenging, as many established methods only detect a focus-averaged signal. Here, we introduce a near-field method for optical field sampling that overcomes that limitation by employing the localization of the enhanced near-field of a nanometric needle tip. A probe field perturbs the photoemission from the tip, which is induced by a pump pulse, generating a field-dependent current modulation that can easily be captured with our electronic detection scheme. The approach provides reliable characterization of near-petahertz fields. We show that not only the spiral wavefront of visible femtosecond light pulses carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) can be resolved but also the field evolution with time in the focal plane. Additionally, our method is polarization sensitive, which makes it applicable to vectorial field reconstruction. (c) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

In this study, we introduce a method for sampling the optical field by utilizing the enhanced near-field of a nanometric needle tip. This method provides reliable characterization of the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of visible light fields, as well as the resolution of the wavefront and orbital angular momentum of light pulses. The method is also polarization sensitive and applicable to vectorial field reconstruction.