A theoretical study of the application of attosecond streaking spectroscopy to
time-resolved studies of the plasmonic fields surrounding isolated, resonantly
excited spherical nanoparticles is presented. A classification of the
different regimes in attosecond streaking is proposed and identified in our
results that are derived from Mie calculations of plasmon fields, coupled to
classical electron trajectory simulations. It is shown that in an attosecond
streaking experiment, the electrons are almost exclusively sensitive to the
component of the field parallel to the direction in which they are detected.
This allows one to probe the different components of the field individually by
resolving the angle of emission of the electrons. Finally, simulations based
on fields calculated by finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) are compared with
the results obtained using Mie fields. The two are found to be in good
agreement with each other, supporting the notion that FDTD methods can be used
to reliably investigate non-spherical structures