Interference of the photodetached electron waves propagating in perpendicular electric and magnetic fields

Abstract

During photodetachment in external electric and magnetic fields, the detached electron wave propagated from the negative ion in different directions may intersect again at a large distance from the negative ion, thus creating an interference pattern in the detached electron’s current density distributions on a detector plane placed at a certain distance from the negative ion. In this work, we calculate the photodetached electron’s current density distributions in perpendicular electric and magnetic fields on the basis of the semi-classical theory. Our results suggest that the electron current density distributions on the detector plane are not only related to the electric and magnetic fields’ strength, but also related to the electron energy. Under certain conditions, the interference pattern could reach macroscopic dimensions and could be observed in a direct photodetachment microscopy experiment. Our studies may guide the future researches in the wave propagation theory and the photodetachment microscopy of negative ion in the presence of external fields.

Keywords:

• electric and magnetic fields
• electron wave
• electron current density
• interference pattern

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Nos. 11374133 and 11074104], and a Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program of China [Grant No. J13LJ04].