2025/08/02 by Stefan Löffler, Löffler, Stefan, P. Schattschneider +1 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications #FOS: Physical sciences #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2508.01383
openalex publication_date 2025/08/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Elastic electron scattering is one of the primary means of investigating materials on the atomic scale. It is usually described by modeling the sample as a fixed, static, perturbative potential, thereby completely neglecting the quantum nature of the atoms inside. In this work, we present a quantum treatment of elastic electron scattering. We show that the interaction of the probe beam and the sample results in entanglement between the two systems, which can have far-reaching consequences, particularly on coherence and image contrast. As a timely example, we discuss decoherence in Bragg scattering on nanoparticles. We also investigate under which conditions the conventional scattering theory is recovered.