- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Accelerators and Beams

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Simulating photoemission performance of a nanostructured alkali photocathode with a three-dimensional coupled finite-difference time domain Monte Carlo technique

Mikhail Popov1,*, Sergei Belousov2, Ilya Valuev2,†, Andrey Knizhnik1,2, and Boris Potapkin1,3

  • *Contact author: popov.mikhail@kintechlabs.com
  • †Contact author: valuev@hipercone.com
PDF

Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 29, 084301 – Published 11 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nmfq-j22y

Abstract

We present a methodology for modeling the photoemission process in nanopatterned photocathodes using finite-difference time domain (FDTD) and 3D Monte Carlo (MC) methods adapted for tasks with 3D nanopattern geometry. Using MC, we calculated the electron transport inside the alkali semiconductor. The FDTD method was used to simulate light absorption in a photocathode. This coupled approach self-consistently models resonant effects, electron excitation, transport to the cathode surface, and emission into vacuum. Furthermore, this approach enables the study of two-dimensional (2D) nanopatterned structures. We studied semiconductor photocathodes with 1D and 2D nanopatterned metal substrates. We calculated the quantum efficiency and intrinsic emittance at photon energies from 1.8 to 2.4 eV. We have demonstrated that the quantum efficiency of a nanopatterned photocathode is significantly higher than that of a photocathode with a flat interface. We also demonstrated that the quantum efficiency of a two-dimensional nanostructured photocathode is polarization-independent. At the same time, the cathode intrinsic emittance remains unchanged upon nanopatterning.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (28)

  1. H. Xie, I. Ben-Zvi, T. Rao, T. Xin, and E. Wang, Experimental measurements and theoretical model of the cryogenic performance of bialkali photocathode and characterization with Monte Carlo simulation, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 19, 103401 (2016).
  2. K. L. Jensen and E. J. Montgomery, Photoemission theory and the development of high-performance photocathodes, J. Comput. Theor. Nanosci. 6, 1754 (2009).
  3. R. K. Li, H. To, G. Andonian, J. Feng, A. Polyakov, C. M. Scoby, K. Thompson, W. Wan, H. A. Padmore, and P. Musumeci, Surface-plasmon resonance-enhanced multiphoton emission of high-brightness electron beams from a nanostructured copper cathode, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 074801 (2013).
  4. Z. Liu, J. Guan, Z. Dai, J. Zhong, L. Liu, Z. Jiang, J. Wang, and Y. Nie, Structural design and photoelectron emission characteristics of a new Cs2Te photocathode based on surface plasmon polaritons, Radiat. Phys. Chem. 218, 111545 (2024).
  5. Z. Jiang, Q. Gu, X. Li, E. Wang, M. Gaowei, and W. Liu, Monte Carlo simulations of electron photoemission from plasmon-enhanced bialkali photocathode, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 24, 033402 (2021).
  6. W. Ackermann, G. Asova, V. Ayvazyan et al., Operation of a free-electron laser from the extreme ultraviolet to the water window, Nat. Photonics 1, 336 (2007).
  7. D. Dowell, I. Bazarov, B. Dunham et al., Cathode R&D for future light sources, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 622, 685 (2010).
  8. J. Maxson, L. Cultrera, C. Gulliford, and I. Bazarov, Measurement of the tradeoff between intrinsic emittance and quantum efficiency from a naked photocathode near threshold, Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 234102 (2015).
  9. D. H. Dowell and J. F. Schmerge, Quantum efficiency and thermal emittance of metal photocathodes, Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 12, 074201 (2009).
  10. S. Karkare, D. Dimitrov, W. Schaff, L. Cultrera, A. Bartnik, X. Liu, E. Sawyer, T. Esposito, and I. Bazarov, Monte Carlo charge transport and photoemission from negative electron affinity GaAs photocathodes, J. Appl. Phys. 113, 104904 (2013).
  11. A. Polyakov, C. Senft, K. F. Thompson, J. Feng, S. Cabrini, P. J. Schuck, H. A. Padmore, S. J. Peppernick, and W. P. Hess, Plasmon-enhanced photocathode for high brightness and high repetition rate x-ray sources, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 076802 (2013).
  12. M. Martinez-Calderon, B. Groussin, V. Bjelland, E. Chevallay, V. N. Fedosseev, M. Himmerlich, P. Lorenz, A. Manjavacas, B. A. Marsh, H. Neupert, R. E. Rossel, W. Wuensch, and E. Granados, Hot electron enhanced photoemission from laser fabricated plasmonic photocathodes, Nanophotonics 13, 1975 (2024).
  13. A. Arabkhorasani, J. Khalilzadeh, H. Z. Dizaji, and Y. Shahamat, Design and investigation of gold photocathode performance based on asymmetric plasmonic nano-grattings, Opt. Quantum Electron. 54, 594 (2022).
  14. C. M. Pierce, D. B. Durham, F. Riminucci, S. Dhuey, I. Bazarov, J. Maxson, A. M. Minor, and D. Filippetto, Experimental characterization of photoemission from plasmonic nanogroove arrays, Phys. Rev. Appl. 19, 034034 (2023).
  15. Y. Gong, A. G. Joly, L. M. Kong, P. Z. El-Khoury, and W. P. Hess, High-brightness plasmon-enhanced nanostructured gold photoemitter, Phys. Rev. Appl. 2, 064012 (2014).
  16. M. A. A. Rahman, S. Zhang, and H. E. Elsayed-Ali, Quantum efficiency enhancement in simulated nanostructured negative electron affinity GaAs photocathodes, J. Appl. Phys. 133, 023105 (2023).
  17. W. E. Spicer and A. Herrera-Gomez, Modern theory and applications of photocathodes, in Photodetectors and Power Meters (SPIE, 1993), Vol. 2022, pp. 18–35.
  18. P. Gupta, L. Cultrera, and I. Bazarov, Monte Carlo simulations of electron photoemission from cesium antimonide, J. Appl. Phys. 121, 215702 (2017).
  19. M. Lundstrom, Fundamentals of carrier transport, 2nd edn, Meas. Sci. Technol. 13, 230 (2002).
  20. K. L. Jensen, B. L. Jensen, E. J. Montgomery, D. W. Feldman, P. G. O’Shea, and N. Moody, Theory of photoemission from cesium antimonide using an alpha-semiconductor model, J. Appl. Phys. 104, 1002 (2008).
  21. I. Valuev, S. Belousov, M. Bogdanova, O. Kotov, and Y. Lozovik, FDTD subcell graphene model beyond the thin-film approximation, Appl. Phys. A 123, 60 (2017).
  22. S. Belousov, S. Khilkov, V. Levchenko et al., Hipercone FDTD: Vectorized highly scalable full-wave electromagnetic solver, in Proceedings of the 2018 International Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Symposium (ACES) (IEEE, 2018), pp. 1–2.
  23. A. R. H. F. Ettema and R. A. de Groot, Electronic structure of Cs2KSb and K2CsSb, Phys. Rev. B 66, 115102 (2002).
  24. M. Minissale, G. T. Zewedli, R. Bisson, and L. Gallais, The effect of surface temperature on optical properties of molybdenum mirrors in the visible and near-infrared domains, Nucl. Fusion 58, 096012 (2018).
  25. J. Smedley, T. Rao, and E. Wang, K2CsSb cathode development, AIP Conf. Proc. 1149, 1062 (2009).
  26. J. Smedley, K. Mueller, T. Rao, I. Ben-Zvi, M. Ruiz-Osés, X. Liang, E. M. Muller, S. Lee, K. Attenkofer, H. Padmore, and T. Vecchione, Characterization of K2CsSb Photocathodes by In-Situ X-ray Diffraction and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, in Proceedings of the International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC2011) (San Sebastián, Spain, 2011).
  27. H. Panuganti, E. Chevallay, V. Fedosseev, and M. Himmerlich, Synthesis, surface chemical analysis, lifetime studies and degradation mechanisms of Cs-K-Sb photocathodes, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 986, 164724 (2021).
  28. https://github.com/ComputerCats/Simulating_photoemission_performance_data.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 29, 084301– Published 11 August, 2026
  • Received 28 January 2026
  • Accepted 16 June 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation