1,721,141 research outputs found
Influence of generalized focusing of few-cycle Gaussian pulses in attosecond pulse generation
No full textIn contrast to the case of quasi-monochromatic waves, a focused optical pulse in the few-cycle limit may exhibit two independent curved wavefronts, associated with phase and group retardations, respectively. Focusing optical elements will generally affect these two wavefronts differently, thus leading to very different behavior of the pulse near focus. As limiting cases, we consider an ideal diffractive lens introducing only phase retardations and a perfect non-dispersive refractive lens (or a curved mirror) introducing equal phase and group retardations. We study the resulting diffraction effects on the pulse, finding both strong deformations of the pulse shape and shifts in the spectrum. We then show how important these effects can be in highly nonlinear optics, by studying their role in attosecond pulse generation. In particular, the focusing effects are found to affect substantially the generation of isolated attosecond pulses in gases from few-cycle fundamental optical fields
Generation of a spin-polarized electron beam by multipole magnetic fields
No full textThe propagation of an electronbeam in the presence of transverse magnetic fields possessing integer
topological charges is presented.The spin–magnetic interaction introduces ano nuniform spin precession
of the electrons that gains a space-variant geometrical phase in the transverse plane proportional to the
fields topological charge, whose handedness depends on the input electrons spin state. A combination
of our proposed device with an electron orbital angular momentum sorter can be utilized as a spin-filter
of electron beams in a mid-energy range
Exact solution to simultaneous intensity and phase encryption with a single phase-only hologram
No full textA phase-only hologram applies a modal transformation to an optical transverse spatial mode via phase encoding and intensity masking. Accurate control of the optical field crucially depends on the method employed to encode the hologram. In this Letter, we present a method to encode the amplitude and the phase of an optical field into a phase-only hologram, which allows the exact control of spatial transverse modes. Any intensity masking method modulates the amplitude and alters the phase of the optical field. Our method consists in correcting for this unwanted phase alteration by modifying the phase encryption accordingly. We experimentally verify the accuracy of our method by applying it to the generation and detection of transverse spatial modes in mutually unbiased bases of dimension two and three
Hardy's paradox tested in the spin-orbit Hilbert space of single photons
No full textWe test experimentally the quantum “paradox” proposed by L. Hardy [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1665 (1993)] by using single photons instead of photon pairs. This is achieved by addressing two compatible degrees of freedom of the same particle, namely, its spin angular momentum, determined by the photon polarization, and its orbital angular momentum, a property related to the optical transverse mode. Because our experiment involves a single particle, we cannot use locality to logically enforce noncontextuality, which must therefore be assumed based only on the observables' compatibility. On the other hand, our single-particle experiment can be implemented more simply and allows larger detection efficiencies than typical two-particle ones, with a potential future advantage in terms of closing the detection loopholes
Generation of Nondiffracting Electron Bessel Beams
Full text linkAlmost 30 years ago, Durnin discovered that an optical beam with a transverse intensity profile in the form of a Bessel function of the first order is immune to the effects of diffraction. Unlike most laser beams, which spread upon propagation, the transverse distribution of these Bessel beams remains constant. Electrons also obey a wave equation (the Schrodinger equation), and therefore Bessel beams also exist for electron waves. We generate an electron Bessel beam by diffracting electrons from a nanoscale phase hologram. The hologram imposes a conical phase structure on the electron wave-packet spectrum, thus transforming it into a conical superposition of infinite plane waves, that is, a Bessel beam. We verify experimentally that these beams can propagate for 0.6 m without measurable spreading and can also reconstruct their intensity distributions after being partially obstructed by an obstacle. Finally, we show by numerical calculations that the performance of an electron microscope can be increased dramatically through use of these beams
Quantum simulation of a spin polarization device in an electron microscope
No full textA proposal for an electron-beam device that can act as an efficient spin-polarization filter has been recently put forward (Karimi et al 2012 Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 044801). It is based on combining the recently developed diffraction technology for imposing orbital angular momentum to the beam with a multipolar Wien filter inducing a sort of artificial non-relativistic spin–orbit coupling. Here we reconsider the proposed device with a fully quantum- mechanical simulation of the electron-beam propagation, based on the well- established multi-slice method, supplemented with a Pauli term for taking into account the spin degree of freedom. Using this upgraded numerical tool, we study the feasibility and practical limitations of the proposed method for spin polarizing a free electron beam
Generation and dynamics of optical beams with polarization singularities
No full textWe present a convenient method to generate vector beams
of light having polarization singularities on their axis, via partial spin-toorbital angular momentum conversion in a suitably patterned liquid crystal cell. The resulting polarization patterns exhibit a C-point on the beam axis and an L-line loop around it, and may have different geometrical structures such as “lemon”, “star”, and “spiral”. Our generation method allows us to control the radius of L-line loop around the central C-point. Moreover, we investigate the free-air propagation of these fields across a Rayleigh range
Violation of Leggett-type inequalities in the spin-orbit degrees of freedom of a single photon
No full textWe report the experimental violation of Leggett-type inequalities for a hybrid entangled state of spin and orbital angular momentum of a single photon. These inequalities give a physical criterion to verify the possible validity of a class of hidden-variable theories, originally named “crypto nonlocal,” that are not excluded by the violation of Bell-type inequalities. In our case, the tested theories assume the existence of hidden variables associated with independent degrees of freedom of the same particle, while admitting the possibility of an influence between the two measurements, i.e., the so-called contextuality of observables. We observe a violation of the Leggett inequalities for a range of experimental inputs, with a maximum violation of seven standard deviations, thus ruling out this class of hidden-variable models with a high level of confidence
Highly efficient electron vortex beams generated by nanofabricated phase holograms
No full textWe propose an improved type of holographic-plate suitable for the shaping of electron beams. The plate is fabricated by a focused ion beam on a silicon nitride membrane and introduces a controllable phase shift to the electron wavefunction. We adopted the optimal blazed-profile design for the phase hologram, which results in the generation of highly efficient (25%) electron vortex beams. This approach paves the route towards applications in nano-scale imaging and materials science
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