Optical-field-controlled photoemission from plasmonic nanoparticles

At high intensities, light–matter interactions are controlled by the electric field of the exciting light. For instance, when an intense laser pulse interacts with an atomic gas, individualcycles of the incident electric field ionize gas atoms and steer the resulting attosecond-duration electrical wavepackets. Such field-controlled light–matter interactions form the basisof attosecond science and have recently expanded from gases to solid-state nanostructures 3–18. Here, we extend these field-controlled interactions to metallic nanoparticles support-ing localized surface plasmon resonances. We demonstrate strong-field, carrier-envelope-phase-sensitive photoemission from arrays of tailored metallic nanoparticles, and we showthe influence of the nanoparticle geometry and the plasmon resonance on the phase-sensitive response. Additionally, from a technological standpoint, we push strong-field light–matterinteractions to the chip scale. We integrate our plasmonic nanoparticles and experimental geometry in compact, micro-optoelectronic devices that operate out of vacuum and underambient conditions