Electrons and lasers

The group studies the interaction between free electrons and intense laser fields, working at the interface of electron microscopy, quantum optics, and strong-field physics. By using light to shape, accelerate, and entangle electron wavepackets, we aim to control the quantum state of an electron beam with the same precision that photonics has brought to light, and to read out the resulting correlations between electrons and photons.

These capabilities matter because electrons couple strongly to matter and carry picometer-scale wavelengths, so a beam whose phase and timing are controlled by lasers can probe structure and dynamics that are inaccessible to either light or conventional electrons alone. The same strong-field toolkit also opens a route to testing quantum electrodynamics in regimes where the vacuum itself responds nonlinearly to intense fields, connecting tabletop electron experiments to fundamental questions about light, matter, and the vacuum.