Abstract

Field Electron Emission (FEE) is one of the earliest tool for surface science characterization and occurs when a strong negative electric field is applied. Field Ion Emission, obtained with opposite bias voltage, was even the first process allowing the direct observation of individual atoms in 1955, more than 25 years before the scanning tunneling microscope. FEE is at the heart of modern characterization instruments in nanoscience such as scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy or far field scanning tunneling microscopy. Recently, several experiments on sharp metallic nano-tips irradiated by femtosecond laser have shown the great potential of femtosecond laser assisted FEE (FLAFEE) to access the ultra-fast electronic dynamics of nano-objects [1-4].

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