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Femtosecond Thermionic Emission In The Space-Charge Limited Regime, D. Mark Riffe, X. Y. Wang, M. C. Downer, D. L. Fisher, T. Tajima, J. L. Erskine

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We study femtosecond-laser-pulse-induced electron emission from W(100), Al(110), and Ag(lll) in the sub-damage regime (1–44 mJ/cm² fluence) by simultaneously measuring the incident-light reflectivity, total electron yield, and electron-energy distribution curves of the emitted electrons. The total-yield results are compared with a space-charge-limited extension of the Richardson-Dushman equation for short-time-scale thermionic emission and with particle-in-a-cell computer simulations of femtosecond-pulsed-induced thermionic emission. Quantitative agreement between the experimental results and two calculated temperature-dependent yields is obtained and shows that the yield varies linearly with temperature beginning at a threshold electron temperature of ~0.25 eV The particle-in-a-cell simulations also reproduce the experimental electron-energy …