Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation

Bremsstrahlung-the spontaneous emission of broadband radiation from free electrons that are deflected by atomic nuclei-contributes to the majority of X-rays emitted from X-ray tubes and used in applications ranging from medical imaging to semiconductor chip inspection. Here, we show that the bremsst...

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Main Authors: Wong, Wesley Lee Wei, Shi, Xihang, Karnieli, Aviv, Lim, Jeremy, Kumar, Suraj, Carbajo, Sergio, Kaminer, Ido, Wong, Liang Jie
Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/174350
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1743502024-04-26T15:55:36Z Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation Wong, Wesley Lee Wei Shi, Xihang Karnieli, Aviv Lim, Jeremy Kumar, Suraj Carbajo, Sergio Kaminer, Ido Wong, Liang Jie School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Physics X-ray Quantum physics Electron waveshaping 2D materials Quantum optics Bremsstrahlung-the spontaneous emission of broadband radiation from free electrons that are deflected by atomic nuclei-contributes to the majority of X-rays emitted from X-ray tubes and used in applications ranging from medical imaging to semiconductor chip inspection. Here, we show that the bremsstrahlung intensity can be enhanced significantly-by more than three orders of magnitude-through shaping the electron wavefunction to periodically overlap with atoms in crystalline materials. Furthermore, we show how to shape the bremsstrahlung X-ray emission pattern into arbitrary angular emission profiles for purposes such as unidirectionality and multi-directionality. Importantly, we find that these enhancements and shaped emission profiles cannot be attributed solely to the spatial overlap between the electron probability distribution and the atomic centers, as predicted by the paraxial and non-recoil theory for free electron light emission. Our work highlights an unprecedented regime of free electron light emission where electron waveshaping provides multi-dimensional control over practical radiation processes like bremsstrahlung. Our results pave the way towards greater versatility in table-top X-ray sources and improved fundamental understanding of quantum electron-light interactions. National Research Foundation (NRF) Published version This project is supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore (Project ID NRF2020-NRF-ISF004-3525). X.S. is supported in part by a fellowship of the Israel Council for Higher Education and by the Technion’s Helen Diller Quantum Center. A.K. is supported by the Urbanek-Chodorow postdoctoral fellowship by the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University, the Zuckerman STEM leadership postdoctoral program, the VATAT-Quantum fellowship by the Israel Council for Higher Education, and the Viterbi fellowship of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. S.C. is supported by US AFOSR under contract no. FA9550-23-1-0409 and DOE under contract no. DESC0022559. I.K. is supported by the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) under grant No. 2022144, and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) under grant No. 3525/20. 2024-03-27T04:51:50Z 2024-03-27T04:51:50Z 2024 Journal Article Wong, W. L. W., Shi, X., Karnieli, A., Lim, J., Kumar, S., Carbajo, S., Kaminer, I. & Wong, L. J. (2024). Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation. Light: Science & Applications, 13(1), 29-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41377-023-01363-4 2047-7538 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/174350 10.1038/s41377-023-01363-4 38267427 2-s2.0-85182843400 1 13 29 en NRF2020-NRF-ISF004-3525 Light: Science & Applications 10.21979/N9/MTNOHR © 2024 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. application/pdf application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Physics
X-ray
Quantum physics
Electron waveshaping
2D materials
Quantum optics
spellingShingle Physics
X-ray
Quantum physics
Electron waveshaping
2D materials
Quantum optics
Wong, Wesley Lee Wei
Shi, Xihang
Karnieli, Aviv
Lim, Jeremy
Kumar, Suraj
Carbajo, Sergio
Kaminer, Ido
Wong, Liang Jie
Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation
description Bremsstrahlung-the spontaneous emission of broadband radiation from free electrons that are deflected by atomic nuclei-contributes to the majority of X-rays emitted from X-ray tubes and used in applications ranging from medical imaging to semiconductor chip inspection. Here, we show that the bremsstrahlung intensity can be enhanced significantly-by more than three orders of magnitude-through shaping the electron wavefunction to periodically overlap with atoms in crystalline materials. Furthermore, we show how to shape the bremsstrahlung X-ray emission pattern into arbitrary angular emission profiles for purposes such as unidirectionality and multi-directionality. Importantly, we find that these enhancements and shaped emission profiles cannot be attributed solely to the spatial overlap between the electron probability distribution and the atomic centers, as predicted by the paraxial and non-recoil theory for free electron light emission. Our work highlights an unprecedented regime of free electron light emission where electron waveshaping provides multi-dimensional control over practical radiation processes like bremsstrahlung. Our results pave the way towards greater versatility in table-top X-ray sources and improved fundamental understanding of quantum electron-light interactions.
author2 School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
author_facet School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Wong, Wesley Lee Wei
Shi, Xihang
Karnieli, Aviv
Lim, Jeremy
Kumar, Suraj
Carbajo, Sergio
Kaminer, Ido
Wong, Liang Jie
format Article
author Wong, Wesley Lee Wei
Shi, Xihang
Karnieli, Aviv
Lim, Jeremy
Kumar, Suraj
Carbajo, Sergio
Kaminer, Ido
Wong, Liang Jie
author_sort Wong, Wesley Lee Wei
title Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation
title_short Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation
title_full Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation
title_fullStr Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation
title_full_unstemmed Free-electron crystals for enhanced X-ray radiation
title_sort free-electron crystals for enhanced x-ray radiation
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/174350
_version_ 1814047240406171648