1. Cavity-mediated electron-photon pairs
- Author
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Feist, A., Huang, G., Arend, G., Yang, Y., Henke, J. -W., Raja, A. S., Kappert, F. J., Wang, R. N., Lourenço-Martins, H., Qiu, Z., Liu, J., Kfir, O., Kippenberg, T. J., and Ropers, C.
- Subjects
Quantum Physics ,Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors ,Physics - Optics - Abstract
Advancing quantum information, communication and sensing relies on the generation and control of quantum correlations in complementary degrees of freedom. Here, we demonstrate the preparation of electron-photon pair states using the phase-matched interaction of free electrons with the evanescent vacuum field of a photonic-chip-based optical microresonator. Spontaneous inelastic scattering produces intracavity photons coincident with energy-shifted electrons. Harnessing these pairs for correlation-enhanced imaging, we achieve a two-orders of magnitude contrast improvement in cavity-mode mapping by coincidence-gated electron spectroscopy. This parametric pair-state preparation will underpin the future development of free-electron quantum optics, providing a pathway to quantum-enhanced imaging, electron-photon entanglement, and heralded single-electron and Fock-state photon sources.
- Published
- 2022
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