Structured electrons with chiral mass and charge

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fang, Yiqi; Kuttruff, Joel; Nabben, David; Baum, Peter
• 署名单位: University of Konstanz
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-9378
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adp9143
• 发表日期: 2024-07-12
• 页码: 183-187
• 关键词: ring currents; transmission; generation; phonons; light

摘要

Chirality is a phenomenon with widespread relevance in fundamental physics, material science, chemistry, optics, and spectroscopy. In this work, we show that a free electron can be converted by the field cycles of laser light into a right-handed or left-handed coil of mass and charge. In contrast to phase-vortex beams, our electrons maintained a flat de Broglie wave but obtained their chirality from the shape of their expectation value in space and time. Measurements of wave function densities by attosecond gating revealed the three-dimensional shape of coils and double coils with left-handed or right-handed pitch. Engineered elementary particles with such or related chiral geometries should be useful for applications in chiral sensing, free-electron quantum optics, particle physics or electron microscopy.