Photoelectron emission in femtosecond laser assisted scanning tunneling microscopy

Direct illumination of the tunneling gap in an ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microscope with ultrashort pump-probe laser pulses may offer ultimate spatial and temporal resolution in surface experiments. The electronic bandwidth of the tunneling gap (< 1 THz) does not limit the time resolution. Our experiments show that multiphoton photoelectron emission from the sample limits the application of this detection scheme at high laser fluence. However, a substrate specific pump-probe effect in the photoelectron yield with femtosecond transients is observed on Tantalum and on GaAs(110) surfaces.