Scattering of twisted light from a crystal

Abstract

Abstract Recent years have seen significant progress in the generation and application of twisted beams carrying orbital angular momentum. Here we study the elastic scattering of twisted Bessel light from a crystal and compare our predictions with the results for incident plane-wave radiation. Based on form-factor approximation our numerical calculations of the differential scattering cross sections have been carried out for a crystal of lithium at x-ray energies. It is shown that the use of twisted light can lead to a measurable change in the scattering cross section for the nanocrystals approaching a few nm in size.