Proposal for the generation of an ion vortex beam and study of its electromagnetic fields

Abstract

We propose a scheme for the generation of an ion vortex beam and we study the properties of its electromagnetic field on a plane transverse to its propagation direction. The ion vortex is created by the diffraction of an ionic beam by a light mask with a spiral-like transverse intensity pattern. The diffraction is a result of a short time optical dipole interaction between the light mask and the ion which results to a phase imprint on the ionic wave function. It is shown that as the order of the vortex states that are generated by the various diffraction gets higher the electromagnetic field components have reduced magnitudes. The properties of these fields are studied against the various parameters of the problem.