Electron Vortex Beams with High Quanta of Orbital Angular Momentum

Published

January 14, 2011

Author(s)

Benjamin James McMorran, Amit K. Agrawal, Ian M. Anderson, Andrew A. Herzing, Henri J. Lezec, Jabez J. McClelland, John Unguris

Abstract

Analogous to vortices in light optical beams, electron optical beams with helical wavefronts carry orbital angular momentum and promise new capabilities for electron microscopy and other applications. We use nanofabricated diffraction holograms in an electron microscope to produce multiple electron vortex beams with well-defined topological charge. Beams carrying up to 100 quanta, , of orbital angular momentum per electron are observed, demonstrating that a charged massive particle can exhibit stable quantized orbital motion in free space in the absence of any confining potential or external field. Quantized electron vortices open interesting new avenues in physics and provides novel opportunities in electron microscopy and magnetic imaging.

Citation

Science

Volume

331

Pub Type

Journals

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Local Download

Keywords

electron vortex, optical vortex, Laguerre-Gaussian, electron holography

Citation

, B. , Agrawal, A. , Anderson, I. , Herzing, A. , Lezec, H. , McClelland, J. and Unguris, J. (2011), Electron Vortex Beams with High Quanta of Orbital Angular Momentum, Science, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=906991 (Accessed October 4, 2025)