MRI: Development of an Ultrafast Time-Resolved Microscope for Imaging of Charge Carrier Dynamics in Complex Materials

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With this award from the Major Research Instrumentation Program, the University of Pittsburgh will be able to develop a unique instrument for studying both momentum and spatially resolved charge carrier dynamics in solid state materials. The combination of photoemission electron microscopy and ultrafast laser excitation of two-photon photoemission will be used for the spatiotemporal imaging of electrons in solid-state materials with less than twenty nanometer spatial resolution and less than one femtosecond temporal resolution. The proposed time-resolved photoemission electron microscope will offer several orders-of-magnitude better resolution over the currently available technology, which is necessary to obtain dynamical images quantum mechanical phenomena in solid state materials. The expected outcome of the research is a better understanding of charge carrier dynamics in the quantum regime, discovery of new physical phenomena, improved understanding of optical and electronic devices, and education of students in instrument science and nano-science.With this award from the Major Research Instrumentation Program, the University of Pittsburgh will be able to develop a unique instrument for studying both momentum and spatially resolved charge carrier dynamics in solid state materials. As the size of optical and electronic devices shrinks to the nanometer scale, the physics describing their properties changes from the classical to the quantum regime. This presents a need for instrumentation for imaging of the dynamical electronic properties on nanometer scale. A unique instrument for time-resolved microscopy to be developed will provide an unprecedented ability to create movies with less than one femtosecond temporal and less than twenty nanometers spatial resolution of how electrons in a solid state material evolve in energy, space, and time. The development project will educate students in techniques of lasers, vacuum, and microscopy at the forefront of nanotechnology and device physics. The time-resolved microscope will provide an indispensable and strategic tool for understanding novel physical phenomena and for developing advanced optical and electronic devices.