Photon bunching in cathodoluminescence induced by indirect electron excitation

The impulsive excitation of ensembles of excitons or color centers by a high-energy electron beam results in the observation of photon bunching in the second-order correlation function of the cathodoluminescence generated by those emitters. Photon bunching in cathodoluminescence microscopy can be used to resolve the excited-state dynamics and the excitation and emission efficiency of nanoscale materials, and it can be used to probe interactions between emitters and nanophotonic cavities. Unfortunately, the required integration times for these measurements can be problematic for beam-sensitive materials. Here, we report substantial changes in the measured bunching induced by indirect electron interactions (with indirect electron excitation inducing g²(0) values approaching 10⁴). This result is critical to the interpretation of g²(τ) in cathodoluminescence microscopies, and, more importantly, it provides a foundation for the nanoscale characterization of optical properties in beam-sensitive materials.