A perturbation theory study of electron vortices in electromagnetic fields: the case of infinitely long line charge and magnetic dipole

L Xie; P Wang; X Q Pan

doi:10.1016/j.micron.2014.02.015

A perturbation theory study of electron vortices in electromagnetic fields: the case of infinitely long line charge and magnetic dipole

Micron. 2014 Aug:63:9-14. doi: 10.1016/j.micron.2014.02.015. Epub 2014 Mar 19.

Authors

L Xie¹, P Wang², X Q Pan³

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: xielin@nju.edu.cn.
² National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: wangpeng@nju.edu.cn.
³ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, People's Republic of China; Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. Electronic address: panxumich@gmail.com.

PMID: 24690540
DOI: 10.1016/j.micron.2014.02.015

Abstract

The novel discovery of electron vortices carrying quantized orbital angular momentum motivated intensive research of their basic properties as well as applications, e.g. structural characterization of magnetic materials. In this paper, the fundamental interactions of electron vortices within infinitely long atomic-column-like electromagnetic fields are studied based on the relativistically corrected Pauli-Schrödinger equation and the perturbation theory. The relative strengths of three fundamental interactions, i.e. the electron-electric potential interaction, the electron-magnetic potential/field interaction and the spin-orbit coupling are discussed. The results suggest that the perturbation energies of the last two interactions are in an order of 10(3)-10(4) smaller than that of the first one for electron vortices. In addition, it is also found that the strengths of these interactions are strongly dependant on the spatial distributions of the electromagnetic field as well as the electron vortices.

Keywords: Electron vortex beam; Electron–electromagnetic field interaction; Perturbation theory; Spin–orbit coupling.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't