Freely propagating electrons may serve as quantum probes that can become coherently correlated with other quantum systems, offering access to advanced metrological resources. We propose a setup that coherently couples free electrons in an electron microscope to a trapped-ion quantum processor, enabling non-destructive, quantum-coherent detection and the accumulation of information across multiple electrons. Our analysis shows that single electrons can induce resolvable qubit excitations, establishing a platform for practical applications such as quantum-enhanced, dose-efficient electron microscopy.
@article{arxiv.2601.11446,
title = {Coupling free electrons to a trapped-ion quantum computer},
author = {Elias Pescoller and Santiago Beltrán-Romero and Sebastian Egginger and Nicolas Jungwirth and Martino Zanetti and Dominik Hornof and Michael S. Seifner and Iva Březinová and Philipp Haslinger and Thomas Juffmann and Johannes Kofler and Philipp Schindler and Dennis Rätzel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.11446},
year = {2026}
}