Nanoplasmonic electron acceleration in silver clusters studied by angular-resolved electron spectroscopy

The nanoplasmonic field enhancement effects in the energetic electron emission from few-nm-sized silver clusters exposed to intense femtosecond dual pulses are investigated by high-resolution double differential electron spectroscopy. For moderate laser intensities of 1014?W?cm?2, the delay-dependent and angular-resolved electron spectra show laser-aligned emission of electrons up to keV kinetic energies, exceeding the ponderomotive potential by two orders of magnitude. The importance of the nanoplasmonic field enhancement due to resonant Mie-plasmon excitation observed for optimal pulse delays is investigated by a direct comparison with molecular dynamics results. The excellent agreement of the key signatures in the delay-dependent and angular-resolved spectra with simulation results allows for a quantitative analysis of the laser and plasmonic contributions to the acceleration process. The extracted field enhancement at resonance verifies the dominance of surface-plasmon-assisted re-scattering.