Journal
NATURE PHOTONICS
Volume 11, Issue 12, Pages 793-+Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41566-017-0045-8
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Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) [Schwerpunktprogramm (SPP) 1840, Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB) 1073, SFB 755]
- Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture
- VolkswagenStiftung
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Ultrafast electron and X-ray imaging and spectroscopy are the basis for an ongoing revolution in the understanding of dynamical atomic-scale processes in matter. The underlying technology relies heavily on laser science for the generation and characterization of ever shorter pulses. Recent findings suggest that ultrafast electron microscopy with attosecond-structured wavefunctions may be feasible. However, such future technologies call for means to both prepare and fully analyse the corresponding free-electron quantum states. Here, we introduce a framework for the preparation, coherent manipulation and characterization of free-electron quantum states, experimentally demonstrating attosecond electron pulse trains. Phase-locked optical fields coherently control the electron wavefunction along the beam direction. We establish a new variant of quantum state tomography-'SQUIRRELS'-for free-electron ensembles. The ability to tailor and quantitatively map electron quantum states will promote the nanoscale study of electron-matter entanglement and new forms of ultrafast electron microscopy down to the attosecond regime.
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