Quantum tornado in the electron beam

Prof. Schattschneider from Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna), together with colleagues from Belgium, is developing a method of producing rotating electron beams and is publishing the technology in the scientific journal "Nature". Manipulating materials with rotating quantum particles: a team from the University of Antwerp and TU Vienna (Professor Peter Schattschneider, Institute of Solid State Physics) has succeeded in producing what are known as vortex beams: rotating electron beams, which make it possible to investigate the magnetic properties of materials. In the future, it may even be possible to manipulate the tiniest components in a targeted manner and set them in rotation. The physicists report on this breakthrough in electron physics and its application in the current edition of "Nature". Rotating current: the quantum tornado Electron beams have been used to analyse materials for some time now - for example in electron microscopes. For the most part, the beams' rotation does not affect this analysis. In classical physics, an electron current in a vacuum does not have any orbital angular momentum.