The passage of a vortex electron over an inclined grating

Abstract

We study Smith-Purcell radiation from a conducting grating generated by an inclined passage of a shaped electron wave packet with an electric quadrupole moment in the non-paraxial regime. Spreading of an asymmetric wave packet induces quadrupole corrections to the radiation field. Although the non-paraxial corrections stay small, they are dynamically enhanced during the interaction of the electron with the grating whose length exceeds the Rayleigh length of the packet. To simplify the possible experimental setup where such effects could be measured, we study the dependence of these effects on the inclination angle, i.e. the angle between the mean velocity of the packet and the surface of the grating. There is a minimal angle such that the multipole expansion always stays valid at the grating surface. In such a regime, the quadrupole contribution to the Smith-Purcell radiation can become the leading one, which represents a novel quantum effect impossible for classical point-like electrons. Thus, the impact of the wave-packet shape (vortex structure or non-spherical shape) can be observed experimentally by comparing the radiation for different orientations of the grating in the single-electron regime.