Coulomb interactions and the spatial coherence of femtosecond nanometric electron pulses

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Coulomb interactions affect the spatial coherence of femtosecond nanometric electron pulses, revealing coherence loss at very low electron charges and providing a quantitative model for this phenomenon.

Contribution

It presents a detailed experimental and theoretical analysis of coherence degradation in pulsed electron sources due to Coulomb interactions at extremely low electron counts.

Findings

Coherence visibility decreases with increasing electron bunch charge.

Loss of coherence occurs at less than 1 electron per pulse due to stochastic emission.

Model simulations accurately explain the observed coherence loss.

Abstract

The transverse coherence of electrons is of utmost importance in high resolution electron microscopes, point-projection microscopes, low-energy electron microscopy and various other applications. Pulsed versions of many of these have recently been realized, mostly relying on femtosecond laser-triggering electron emission from a sharp needle source. We here observe electron interference fringes and measure how the interference visibility becomes reduced as we increase the electron bunch charge. Due to the extremely strong spatio-temporal confinement of the electrons generated here, we observe the visibility reduction already at average electron bunch charges of less than 1 electron per pulse, owing to the stochastic nature of the emission process. We can fully and quantitatively explain the loss of coherence based on model simulations. Via the van Cittert-Zernike theorem we can connect the visibility reduction to an increase of the effective source size. We conclude by discussing emittance, brightness and quantum degeneracy, which have direct ramifications to many setups and devices relying on pulsed coherent electrons.