Free-electron decoherence: Theory and applications

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive theoretical framework to understand how electromagnetic interactions cause decoherence of free electrons in various materials, impacting electron microscopy and enabling nanoscale thermometry.

Contribution

It provides the first unified theory of free-electron decoherence in bulk and surface materials, highlighting dominant mechanisms and temperature effects.

Findings

Bulk plasmons dominate decoherence in Al and Au.

Electronic excitations are primary in ionic insulators like LiF.

Temperature influences decoherence, enabling nanoscale thermometry.

Abstract

Electron microscopy relies on the spatial coherence of electron beams to generate atomic-scale images using interference and diffraction, which can be degraded by inelastic scattering processes that induce decoherence. Here, we present a theoretical study of decoherence arising from the electromagnetic interaction of free electrons with bulk materials and planar surfaces. We show that bulk plasmons dominate decoherence in Al and Au, while electronic excitations above the band gap, supplemented by weaker coupling to phononic and guided modes, are the primary channels in ionic insulators such as LiF. A thermal population of electromagnetic modes leads to a divergence in the energy-loss probability at low frequencies, which in turn produces a pronounced temperature dependence. We show that this effect can be exploited for nanoscale thermometry, predicting that optimized energy-filtered holography enables $\sim0.1\%$ changes in fringe visibility for physically viable temperature variations in metals. Through these results, we establish a unified theoretical framework to describe free-electron decoherence in the bulk and surfaces of arbitrary materials.