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Manipulating the spin polarization of electron beams using light is highlydesirable but exceedingly challenging, as the approaches proposed in previousstudies using free-space light usually require enormous laser intensities.Here, we propose the use of a transverse electric optical near field, extendedon nanostructures, to efficiently induce spin flips of an adjacent electronbeam by exploiting the strong inelastic electron scattering in phase-matchedoptical near fields. Our calculations show that the use of a dramaticallyreduced laser intensity ($\sim 10^{12}\,$W/cm$^2$) with a short interactionlength ($16\,\mu$m) achieves an electron spin-flip probability of approximately$12\%$. Intriguingly, the two spin components of an unpolarized incidentelectron beam -- parallel and antiparallel to the electric field -- arespin-flipped and inelastically scattered to different energy states, providingan analog of the Stern--Gerlach experiment in the energy dimension. Ourfindings are important for optical control of free-electron spins, preparationof spin-polarized electron beams, and applications as varied as in materialscience and high-energy physics.

Spin flips of electron beams in optical near fields