Ultrafast Relativistic Electron Nanoprobes

Abstract

One of the frontiers in electron scattering is to couple ultrafast temporal resolution with highly localized probes to investigate the role of microstructure on material properties. Here, taking advantage of the unprecedented average brightness of the APEX electron gun providing relativistic electron pulses at high repetition rates, we demonstrate for the first time the generation of ultrafast relativistic electron beams with picometer-scale emittance and their ability to probe nanoscale features on materials with complex microstructures. At the sample plane, the APEX beam is tightly focused by a custom in-vacuum lens system based on permanent magnet quadrupoles, and its evolution around the waist is tracked by a knife-edge technique, allowing accurate reconstruction of the beam shape and local density. We then use the focused beam to characterize a Ti-6 wt\% Al polycrystalline sample by correlating the diffraction and imaging modality, showcasing the capability to locate grain boundaries and map adjacent crystallographic domains with sub-micron precision. This work provides a new paradigm for ultrafast electron instrumentation, demonstrating the ability to generate relativistic beams with ultrasmall transverse phase space volumes enabling novel characterization techniques such as relativistic ultrafast electron nano-diffraction and ultrafast scanning transmission electron microscopy.

References in corpus (10)

• Magic-angle graphene superlattices: a new platform for unconventional superconductivity
• Dielectric Laser Acceleration
• Direct measurement of sub-10 fs relativistic electron beams with ultralow emittance
• Diffractive imaging of a molecular rotational wavepacket with femtosecond Megaelectronvolt electron pulses
• Ultrafast manipulation of mirror domain walls in a charge density wave
• Femtosecond electrons probing currents and atomic structure in nanomaterials
• Nanoscale diffractive probing of strain dynamics in ultrafast transmission electron microscopy
• Femtosecond single- to few-electron point-projection microscopy for nanoscale dynamic imaging
• Few-femtosecond Electron Beam with THz-frequency Wakefield-driven Compression
• Knife-edge based measurement of the 4D transverse phase space of electron beams with picometer-scale emittance

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Ultracold electrons via Near-Threshold Photoemission from Single-Crystal Cu(100)
• A kiloelectron-volt ultrafast electron micro-diffraction apparatus using low emittance semiconductor photocathodes
• Multi-Objective Bayesian Active Learning for MeV-ultrafast electron diffraction
• Relativistic ultrafast electron diffraction at high repetition rates
• Knife-edge based measurement of the 4D transverse phase space of electron beams with picometer-scale emittance
• Virtual-Diagnostic-Based Time Stamping for Ultrafast Electron Diffraction
• Ultimate bunch length and emittance performance of an MeV ultrafast electron diffraction apparatus with a DC gun and a multi-cavity SRF linac
• Electron beam transverse phase space tomography using nanofabricated wire scanners with submicrometer resolution
• Ultrafast Electron Diffraction: Visualizing Dynamic States of Matter
• Ultrafast optical melting of trimer superstructure in layered 1T'-TaTe2
• Adaptive Latent Space Tuning for Non-Stationary Distributions
• Toward nonthermal control of excited quantum materials: framework and investigations by ultrafast electron scattering and imaging