The primary step of almost any interaction between light and materials is the electrodynamic response of the electrons to the optical cycles of the impinging light wave on sub-wavelength and sub-cycle dimensions¹. Understanding and controlling the electromagnetic responses of a material^{2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11} is therefore essential for modern optics and nanophotonics^{12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19}. Although the small de Broglie wavelength of electron beams should allow access to attosecond and ångström dimensions²⁰, the time resolution of ultrafast electron microscopy²¹ and diffraction²² has so far been limited to the femtosecond domain^16,17,18, which is insufficient for recording fundamental material responses on the scale of the cycles of light^1,2,10. Here we advance transmission electron microscopy to attosecond time resolution of optical responses within one cycle of excitation light²³. We apply a continuous-wave laser²⁴ to modulate the electron wave function into a rapid sequence of electron pulses, and use an energy filter to resolve electromagnetic near-fields in and around a material as a movie in space and time. Experiments on nanostructured needle tips, dielectric resonators and metamaterial antennas reveal a directional launch of chiral surface waves, a delay between dipole and quadrupole dynamics, a subluminal buried waveguide field and a symmetry-broken multi-antenna response. These results signify the value of combining electron microscopy and attosecond laser science to understand light–matter interactions in terms of their fundamental dimensions in space and time.

^{光与材料之间几乎所有相互作用的主要}步骤是电子对子波长和子循环维度上的撞击光波的光循环的电动响应。因此，了解和控制材料的电磁响应^{2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11}对于现代光学和纳米光子学至关重要^{12,13,14,15,16,17,18, 19} . 虽然电子束的小德布罗意波长应该允许进入阿秒和埃维^{20 ，但超快电子显微镜21}和衍射²²的时间分辨率迄今为止仅限于飞秒域^16,17,18，这不足以记录光周期尺度上的基本物质反应^1,2,10。在这里，我们将透射电子显微镜的激发光一个周期内的光学响应分辨率提高到阿秒级时间分辨率²³。我们应用连续波激光器²⁴将电子波函数调制成快速的电子脉冲序列，并使用能量滤波器将材料内部和周围的电磁近场解析为时空电影。纳米结构针尖、介电谐振器和超材料天线的实验揭示了手性表面波的定向发射、偶极子和四极子动力学之间的延迟、亚光速掩埋波导场和对称破缺的多天线响应。这些结果表明，结合电子显微镜和阿秒激光科学来理解光与物质在空间和时间的基本维度方面的相互作用的价值。