Measuring the orbital angular momentum spectrum of an electron beam

Vincenzo Grillo (), Amir H. Tavabi, Federico Venturi, Hugo Larocque, Roberto Balboni, Gian Carlo Gazzadi, Stefano Frabboni, Peng-Han Lu, Erfan Mafakheri, Frédéric Bouchard, Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski, Robert W. Boyd, Martin P. J. Lavery, Miles J. Padgett and Ebrahim Karimi ()
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Vincenzo Grillo: CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze
Amir H. Tavabi: Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons
Federico Venturi: CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze
Hugo Larocque: University of Ottawa
Roberto Balboni: CNR-IMM Bologna
Gian Carlo Gazzadi: CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze
Stefano Frabboni: CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze
Peng-Han Lu: Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons
Erfan Mafakheri: Dipartimento FIM Universitá di Modenae Reggio Emilia
Frédéric Bouchard: University of Ottawa
Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski: Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons
Robert W. Boyd: University of Ottawa
Martin P. J. Lavery: School of Physics and Astronomy, Glasgow University
Miles J. Padgett: School of Physics and Astronomy, Glasgow University
Ebrahim Karimi: University of Ottawa

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract Electron waves that carry orbital angular momentum (OAM) are characterized by a quantized and unbounded magnetic dipole moment parallel to their propagation direction. When interacting with magnetic materials, the wavefunctions of such electrons are inherently modified. Such variations therefore motivate the need to analyse electron wavefunctions, especially their wavefronts, to obtain information regarding the material’s structure. Here, we propose, design and demonstrate the performance of a device based on nanoscale holograms for measuring an electron’s OAM components by spatially separating them. We sort pure and superposed OAM states of electrons with OAM values of between −10 and 10. We employ the device to analyse the OAM spectrum of electrons that have been affected by a micron-scale magnetic dipole, thus establishing that our sorter can be an instrument for nanoscale magnetic spectroscopy.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15536

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