Quantum Optics with Electron-Photon Pairs

Electron microscopy is a highly developed technology that employs the wave properties of electrons to resolve structures at an atomic level. In this project we want to utilize Cherenkov radiation - which is generated by uniformly moving charged particles (electrons) with velocities exceeding the speed of light in a nearby dielectric medium - to create correlated electron-photon pairs, within a transmission electron microscope. This would enable a powerful new platform to study interesting quantum phenomena with far reaching applications, due to their different physical properties: the massive electron with picometer de Broglie wavelength, enabling atomic resolution, and the Cherenkov photon with micrometer wavelength, which is easy to guide, manipulate and detect in a phase coherent manner. We envision to bridge the very successful fields of quantum optics and electron microscopy.