Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Observation of Hanbury Brown–Twiss anticorrelations for free electrons

Nature volume 418, pages 392–394 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Fluctuations in the counting rate of photons originating from uncorrelated point sources become, within the coherently illuminated area, slightly enhanced compared to a random sequence of classical particles. This phenomenon, known in astronomy as the Hanbury Brown–Twiss effect1,2,3,4,5, is a consequence of quantum interference between two indistinguishable photons and Bose–Einstein statistics6. The latter require that the composite bosonic wavefunction is a symmetric superposition of the two possible paths. For fermions, the corresponding two-particle wavefunction is antisymmetric: this excludes overlapping wave trains, which are forbidden by the Pauli exclusion principle. Here we use an electron field emitter to coherently illuminate two detectors, and find anticorrelations in the arrival times of the free electrons. The particle beam has low degeneracy (about 10-4 electrons per cell in phase space); as such, our experiment represents the fermionic twin of the Hanbury Brown–Twiss effect for photons.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Electron optical set-up (top) and fast coincidence electronics (bottom) to measure electron anticorrelations.
Figure 2: Schematic time spectra expected for poissonian processes at infinite time resolution (straight lines) and an antibunched beam at finite resolving time in semilogarithmic representation.
Figure 3: Antibunching as a function of coherence of illumination of the collectors.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Hanbury Brown, R. & Twiss, R. Q. A new type of interferometer for use in radio astronomy. Phil. Mag. 45, 663–682 (1954)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Hanbury Brown, R. & Twiss, R. Q. Correlation between photons in two coherent beams of light. Nature 177, 27–29 (1956)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Hanbury Brown, R. & Twiss, R. Q. The question of correlation between photons in coherent light rays. Nature 178, 1447–1448 (1956)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Hanbury Brown, R. & Twiss, R. Q. Interferometry of the intensity fluctuation in light I. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 242, 300–324 (1957)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Hanbury Brown, R. & Twiss, R. Q. Interferometry of the intensity fluctuation in light II. An experimental test of the theory for partially coherent light. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 243, 291–319 (1958)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Purcell, E. M. The question of correlation between photons in coherent light rays. Nature 178, 1449–1450 (1956)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Brannen, E. & Ferguson, H. I. S. The question of correlation between photons in coherent light beams. Nature 178, 481–482 (1956)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Hanbury Brown, R. The Intensity Interferometer 7 (Taylor and Francis, New York, 1974)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Hanbury Brown, R. & Twiss, R. Q. A test of a new type of stellar interferometer on Sirius. Nature 178, 1046–1448 (1956)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Silverman, M. P. On the feasibility of observing electron antibunching in a field-emission beam. Phys. Lett. A 120, 442–446 (1987)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Kodama, T. et al. Feasibility of observing two-electron interference. Phys. Rev. A 57, 2781–2785 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Henny, M. et al. The fermionic Hanbury Brown and Twiss experiment. Science 284, 296–298 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Oliver, W. D., Kim, J., Liu, R. C. & Yamamoto, Y. Hanbury Brown and Twiss-type experiment with electrons. Science 284, 299–301 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Twiss, R. Q. & Little, A. G. The detection of time-correlated photons by a coincidence counter. Aust. J. Phys. 12, 77–93 (1959)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Hasselbach, F. A ruggedized miniature UHV electron biprism interferometer for new fundamental experiments and applications. Z. Phys. B 71, 443–449 (1988)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Goldberger, M. L., Lewis, H. W. & Watson, K. M. Use of intensity correlations to determine the phase of a scattering amplitude. Phys. Rev. 132, 2764–2787 (1963)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Silverman, M. P. New quantum effects of confined magnetic flux on electrons. Phys. Lett. A 118, 155–158 (1986)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Silverman, M. P. in OSA Proceedings on Photon Correlation Techniques and Applications (eds Abbiss, J. B. & Smart, E. A.) Vol. 1 26–34 (OSA, Washington DC, 1988)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Silverman, M. P. Distinctive quantum features of electron intensity correlation interferometry. Il Nuovo Cimento 97, 200–219 (1987)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank M. Silverman, M. Lenc, T. Tyc, A. Oed and P. Sonnentag for discussions, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for financial support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Angewandte Physik der Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 10, D-72076, Germany

    Harald Kiesel, Andreas Renz & Franz Hasselbach

Authors
  1. Harald Kiesel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andreas Renz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Franz Hasselbach
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Franz Hasselbach.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kiesel, H., Renz, A. & Hasselbach, F. Observation of Hanbury Brown–Twiss anticorrelations for free electrons. Nature 418, 392–394 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature00911

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature00911

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing