Non-diffracting multi-electron vortex beams balancing their electron–electron interactions

Maor Mutzafi, Ido Kaminer, Gal Harari and Mordechai Segev ()
Additional contact information
Maor Mutzafi: Physics Department and Solid State Institute
Ido Kaminer: Physics Department and Solid State Institute
Gal Harari: Physics Department and Solid State Institute
Mordechai Segev: Physics Department and Solid State Institute

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract The wave-like nature of electrons has been known for almost a century, but only in recent years has the ability to shape the wavefunction of EBeams (Electron-Beams) become experimentally accessible. Various EBeam wavefunctions have been demonstrated, such as vortex, self-accelerating, Bessel EBeams etc. However, none has attempted to manipulate multi-electron beams, because the repulsion between electrons rapidly alters the beam shape. Here, we show how interference effects of the quantum wavefunction describing multiple electrons can be used to exactly balance both the repulsion and diffraction-broadening. We propose non-diffracting wavepackets of multiple electrons, which can also carry orbital angular momentum. Such wavefunction shaping facilitates the use of multi-electron beams in electron microscopy with higher current without compromising on spatial resolution. Simulating the quantum evolution in three-dimensions and time, we show that imprinting such wavefunctions on electron pulses leads to shape-preserving multi-electrons ultrashort pulses. Our scheme applies to any beams of charged particles, such as protons and ion beams.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00651-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-00651-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00651-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().