KEYWORDS: Electrons, Near field optics, Quantum fields, Quantum effects, Quantum regime, Light absorption, Electron microscopy, Electron microscopes, Ultrafast phenomena, Reflection
The interaction between electron beams and nanoscale optical fields offers unique ways of studying ultrafast processes in matter with an unpreceded spatiotemporal and spectral resolution, currently approaching a combined Å–fs–meV resolution. However, the electron kinetic energies commonly employed in most ultrafast electron microscopes (tens to hundreds of keV) far exceeds that of the optical fields (few eV), thereby resulting in small electron–light coupling and thus limiting the emergence of quantum effects beyond the perturbative regime; indeed, in such context the interaction is well described by the classical, point-electron and non-recoil approximations. Here, we theoretically investigate electron–light–matter interactions between optical modes and low-energy electrons with comparable energies, and find substantial quantum and recoil effects imprinted in the spectrum of surface-scattered electrons interacting with both confined, nanoscale optical modes or plane-wave photons.
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