Abstract
The key features of quantum mechanics are vividly illustrated by the Young-Feynman two-slit thought experiment, whose second part discusses the recording of an electron distribution with one of the two slits partially or totally closed by an aperture. Here, we realize the original Feynman proposal in a modern electron microscope equipped with a high brightness gun and two biprisms, with one of the biprisms used as a mask. By exciting the microscope lenses to conjugate the biprism plane with the slit plane, observations are carried out in the Fraunhofer plane with nearly ideal control of the covering of one of the slits. A second, new experiment is also presented, in which interference phenomena due to partial overlap of the slits are observed in the image plane. This condition is obtained by inserting the second biprism between the two slits and the first biprism and by biasing it in order to overlap their images.
Highlights
A Controlled Beam Interference Experiment in the Image PlaneThe electron microscope was essentially used as an electron optical bench, in order to bring the mask (biprism) plane conjugate to the slit plane and to capture the Fraunhofer diffraction image of the slits on the detector
Recent advances in electron optics, nanotechnology and specimen preparation have resulted in many studies on the experimental realization of the double-slit thought or gedanken experiment, which was described by Feynman as containing all of the mysteries of quantum mechanics[1,2], using single free electrons
Www.nature.com/scientificreports the drawbacks of former setups, we show how they can be overcome by using a modern electron holography microscope that is equipped with two electron biprisms and a high brightness gun and how a new version of the experiment, in which the fringes are observed in the image instead of the Fraunhofer plane, can be realized
Summary
The electron microscope was essentially used as an electron optical bench, in order to bring the mask (biprism) plane conjugate to the slit plane and to capture the Fraunhofer diffraction image of the slits on the detector. It is possible to identify single image areas where fringes from two slit interference are present and areas with no (or only faint) interference fringes where the slits are blocked by the upper biprism
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