Ultrafast Kapitza-Dirac effect

Similar to the optical diffraction of light passing through a material grating, the Kapitza-Dirac effect occurs when an electron is diffracted by a standing light wave. In its original description the effect is time-independent. In the present work, we extend the Kapitza-Dirac concept to the time domain. By tracking the spatiotemporal evolution of a pulsed electron wave packet diffracted by a femtosecond (10 15 second) standing wave pulse in a pump-probe scheme, we observe so far unseen time-dependent diffraction patterns. The fringe spacing in the observed pattern differs from that generated by the conventional Kapitza-Dirac effect, moreover it decreases as the pump-probe delay time increases. By exploiting this time-resolved diffraction scheme, we gather access to the time evolution of the previously inaccessible phase properties of a free electron.