Abstract: Until recently, work in quantum optics focused on light interacting with bound-electron systems such as atoms, quantum dots, and nonlinear optical crystals. In contrast, free-electron systems enable fundamentally different physical phenomena, as their energy distribution is continuous and not discrete, allowing for tunable transitions and selection rules.
We have developed a platform for studying free-electron quantum optics at the nanoscale, and recently used it to demonstrate key phenomena of this emerging field: the first coherent interaction of a free electron with a photonic cavity and with the quantum statistics of photons.
These capabilities open new paths toward using free electrons as carriers of quantum information. Free electrons emerge as quantum optical sources for desired continuous-variable photonics states used in fault-tolerant quantum computation and communication.
Our experiments bring us to envision a new modality in electron microscopy – imaging coherence – which goes beyond conventional imaging of matter, to also image the coherent quantum state of matter and quantum correlations between individual quantum systems.
•N. Rivera and I. Kaminer, Light–matter interactions with photonic quasiparticles, Nature Reviews Physics 2, 538–561 (2020) (Review)
•K. Wang, R. Dahan, M. Shentcis, Y. Kauffmann, A. Ben-Hayun, O. Reinhardt, S. Tsesses, I. Kaminer, Coherent Interaction between Free Electrons and Cavity Photons, Nature 582, 50 (2020)
•R. Ruimy†, A. Gorlach†, C. Mechel, N. Rivera, and I. Kaminer, Towards atomic-resolution quantum measurements with coherently-shaped free electrons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 233403 (2021)
•O. Reinhardt†, C. Mechel†, M. H. Lynch, and I. Kaminer, Free-Electron Qubits, Annalen der Physik 533, 2000254 (2021)
•Y. Kurman†, R. Dahan†, H. Herzig Shenfux, K. Wang, M. Yannai, Y. Adiv, O. Reinhardt, L. H. G. Tizei, S. Y. Woo, J. Li, J. H. Edgar, M. Kociak, F. H. L. Koppens, and I. Kaminer, Spatiotemporal imaging of 2D polariton wavepacket dynamics using free electrons, Science 372, 1181 (2021)
•R. Dahan†, A. Gorlach†, U. Haeusler†, A. Karnieli†, O. Eyal, P. Yousefi, M. Segev, A. Arie, G. Eisenstein, P. Hommelhoff, and I. Kaminer, Imprinting the quantum statistics of photons on free electrons, Science 373, 6561 (2021)
•A. Karnieli†, S. Tsesses†, R. Yu†, N. Rivera, Z. Zhao, A. Arie, S. Fan, and I. Kaminer‡, Quantum sensing of strongly coupled light-matter systems using free electrons, to appear in Science Advances
•R. Dahan†, G. Baranes†, A. Gorlach, R. Ruimy, N. Rivera, and I. Kaminer, Creation of Optical Cat and GKP States Using Shaped Free Electrons, arxiv:2206.08828 (2022)
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