A nanofabricated amplitude-division electron interferometer in a transmission electron microscope

Wavefront-division electron interferometry with the electron biprism has enabled many applications such as electron holography, exit-wave reconstruction, and demonstration of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. However, wavefront-division interferometry is limited by the requirement of high source coherence. Amplitude-division electron interferometers, first demonstrated by Marton and co-workers in 1954, can overcome this limitation. The implementation of these interferometers is hindered by the precise rotational and translational alignment required. This thesis develops a self-aligned, monolithic electron interferometer consisting of two 45 nm thick silicon layers separated by 20 gm and fabricated from a single crystal silicon cantilever on a transmission electron microscope grid by gallium focused ion-beam milling. Using this interferometer, beam path-separation and interference fringes of lattice periodicity and a maximum contrast of 15% in an unmodified 200 kV transmission electron microscope was demonstrated. This interferometer design can potentially be scaled to millimeter-scale and used in electron holography. It can also be applied to perform fundamental physics experiments such as interaction-free measurement with electrons, with the aim of significantly reducing the damage suffered by biological samples during high-resolution microscopy. Thus, the interferometer can serve as a proof-of-concept of the recently proposed 'Quantum Electron Microscope'.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Agarwal, Akshay

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Karl K. Berggren.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107101

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/107101