Kapitza-Dirac scattering of electrons from a bichromatic standing laser wave

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Kapitza-Dirac scattering of electrons from a bichromatic standing laser wave, revealing interference effects and phase dependencies through numerical and analytical methods.

Contribution

It introduces a combined numerical and analytical approach to study electron diffraction in a bichromatic standing wave, highlighting interference signatures and phase effects.

Findings

Distinct interference signatures observed

Relative phase impacts Rabi oscillations

Analytical solutions complement numerical results

Abstract

Coherent scattering of an electron beam by the Kapitza-Dirac effect from a standing laser wave which comprises two frequency components is studied. To this end, the Schr\"odinger equation is solved numerically with a suitable ponderomotive potential. Besides, an analytical solution for electron diffraction in the asymptotic domain of large field amplitudes is obtained and a mathematical model in reduced dimensionality for the scattering amplitude in the Bragg regime is presented. We demonstrate distinct interference signatures and relative phase effects when the standing wave contains a fundamental frequency and its second harmonic. The influence of the relative field intensities on the Rabi oscillation dynamics is also discussed.