Dresden 2026 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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AKBP: Arbeitskreis Beschleunigerphysik
AKBP 4: Beam Dynamics
AKBP 4.3: Vortrag
Montag, 9. März 2026, 17:15–17:30, SCH/A117
Coulomb Crystallization in Free Electron Beams — •Valerio Di Giulio1,2, Rudolf Haindl1,2, and Claus Ropers1,2 — 1Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen, Germany — 2University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
In the context of electron beams, the Coulomb repulsion experienced by the constituents of high-current probes is usually regarded as a detrimental effect, leading to emittance growth. However, under suitable conditions, electron-electron interactions can be exploited to produce phase space distributions with well-defined energy-time correlations, as recently observed in few-electron pulses photoemitted from a metallic nanotip and imaged in a transmission electron microscope (R. Haindl et al., 2023). Such correlations can be leveraged to harness specific beam properties by selecting a portion of the probe. Extending this concept to higher currents and larger particle numbers, the beam can enter a crystalline state, forming an electron lattice defined by Coulomb repulsion, a Wigner crystal. In this work, we employ Monte Carlo simulations to examine the conditions under which Coulomb crystallization can emerge in both few-particle and continuous electron beams, exploring the interplay between beam temperature, current, and electromagnetic confinement. We compute properties associated with different structural phases, revealing a strong enhancement of beam brightness in the crystalline regime. We also present new measurements of electron-electron energy correlations in pulses containing from 4 to 8 particles, demonstrating the transient formation of an ordered electron chain during propagation in the microscope.
Keywords: Electron microscopy; Coulomb crystallization; Non equilibrium dynamics; Electron-electron correlations