Non-Poissonian ultrashort, nanoscale electron pulses

Abstract

The statistical character of electron beams used in current technologies, as described by a stream of particles, is random in nature. Using coincidence measurements of femtosecond pulsed electron pairs, we report the observation of sub-Poissonian electron statistics that are non-random due to two-electron Coulomb interactions, and that exhibit an anti-bunching signal of 1 part in 4. This advancement is a fundamental step towards realizing a strongly quantum degenerate electron beam needed for many applications, and in particular electron correlation spectroscopy.