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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Electron beam characterization via quantum coherent electric field imaging

Rob Behary1,*, Kevin Su1, Nicolas DeStefano1, Mykhailo Vorobiov1, T. Averett1, Alexandre Camsonne2, Shukui Zhang2, Charles T. Fancher3, Neel Malvania3 et al.

Eugeniy E. Mikhailov1, Seth Aubin1, and Irina Novikova1

  • *Contact author: rbehary@wm.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, L042042 – Published 25 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/sp9j-ps66

Abstract

We demonstrate an all-optical, minimally invasive electron beam (e−beam) characterization using Rydberg electrometry. An e-beam passes through a localized detector volume containing thermal Rb atoms that are optically excited in a quantum superposition of ground and Rydberg states. The e-beam's electric field perturbs atomic coherence and modifies resonance fluorescence in a narrow spectral region near the two-photon optical transition. Imaging Rb fluorescence provides a map of the electric field from the e-beam via Rydberg state Stark shifts and allows us to reconstruct the e-beam width, centroid position, and current. For an e-beam of 20 keV and electron currents of 20–40 µA, we measured the centroid position with an accuracy of ≤8µm and width to within 100 µm, limited by the experimental sensitivity of electric field reconstruction of ∼0.02 V/cm. This method is suitable for a wide range of electron energies and currents, and can be adopted for nuclear and high-energy experiments for minimally invasive real-time diagnostics and profiling of charged particle beams.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, L042042– Published 25 November, 2025
  • Received 13 May 2025
  • Accepted 19 October 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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