Title
Twisted Identities
Preview
Identifier
Finalist
Creation Date
Spring 2020
Department
Physics
Narrative
Humanity has been striving to understand the universe for thousands of years. Today, this understanding has taken a leap forward as a new advancement called electron vortex beams are being used to probe deeper into the unknown. These new beams have a unique twisting that leads to potential applications in communications, microscopy, astronomy, and identification of atomic structures. In order to access these applications, a fundamental understanding of these twisted beams, and their interactions with matter, is required. To gain this deeper insight into twisted beam interactions with matter, we calculate the probability of finding an electron emitted from a collision between the twisted beam and a hydrogen atom. This image shows the results of our calculations by 3-D graphically representing the probability of finding the emitted electron at a specific location (top row) for different atomic structures (bottom row). A larger bubble indicates a greater likelihood that the emitted electron will be found there. Our results show the emitted electron probabilities can be used to determine the atomic structure.