Relativistic Electron Vortex Beams: Angular Momentum and Spin-Orbit Interaction
Open Access
- 17 October 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 107 (17), 174802
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.107.174802
Abstract
Motivated by the recent discovery of electron vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum (AM), we construct exact Bessel-beam solutions of the Dirac equation. They describe relativistic and nonparaxial corrections to the scalar electron beams. We describe the spin and orbital AM of the electron with Berry-phase corrections and predict the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling in free space. This can be observed as a spin-dependent probability distribution of the focused electron vortex beams. Moreover, the magnetic moment is calculated, which shows different factors for spin and orbital AM and also contains the Berry-phase correction.
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Funding Information
- Army Research Office
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- National Science Foundation
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