Non-Diffracting Electron Vortex Beams Balancing Their Electron-Electron Interactions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to shape multi-electron quantum wavefunctions to create non-diffracting vortex beams that balance electron-electron repulsion, enhancing electron microscopy and charged particle beam applications.

Contribution

It proposes a novel wavefunction shaping technique to produce non-diffracting, high-current electron vortex beams that counteract electron-electron interactions.

Findings

Design of non-diffracting multi-electron vortex beams

Wavefunction shaping compensates for electron repulsion and diffraction

Potential applications in high-resolution electron microscopy

Abstract

By introducing concepts of beam shaping into quantum mechanics, we show how interference effects of the quantum wavefunction describing multiple electrons can exactly balance the repulsion among the electrons. With proper shaping of the fermionic wavefunction, we propose non-diffracting quantum wavepackets of multiple electrons that can also carry orbital angular momentum, in the form of multi-electron non-diffracting vortex beams. The wavefunction is designed to compensate for both the repulsion between electrons and for the diffraction-broadening. This wavefunction shaping facilitates the use of electron beams of higher current in numerous applications, thereby improving the signal-to-noise-ratio in electron microscopy and related systems without compromising on the spatial resolution. Our scheme potentially applies for any beams of charged particles, such as protons, muons and ion beams.