Electron microscopes are used wherever particularly small details need to be imaged. But from a strictly physical point of view, every electron in a conventional electron microscope represents a missed opportunity: If all you do is count electrons, any additional quantum information they carry remains unused.
A team at TU Wien, together with teams from the University of Vienna, JKU Linz and the University of Innsbruck, has now developed a way to make use of the quantum information carried by electrons in an electron microscope: The electron beam is coupled to a quantum computer, opening up entirely new possibilities for working with the quantum information of the electrons. This is particularly important for sensitive samples that cannot be bombarded with arbitrarily large numbers of electrons.
The quantum-computer electron microscope is now being built at TU Wien. The paper has been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters and is currently available on the arXiv preprint server.
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