The world’s fastest microscope makes its debut

The motion of moving electrons is captured like never before.

Researchers have developed a laser-based microscope that produces images at speeds of attoseconds – or one billionth of one billionth of a second. Called “attomicroscopy,” the technique can capture the sharp movement of electrons inside a molecule with far greater precision than was previously possible, physicist Mohammed Hassan and colleagues report Aug. 21. Advances in science.

“I always try to see things that no one has seen before,” says Hassan, of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

An atom microscope is a modified transmission electron microscope that uses an electron beam to image things as small as a few nanometers.SN: 16.7.08). Like light, electrons can be thought of as waves. However, these wavelengths are much smaller than those of light. This means that an electron beam has a higher resolution than a conventional laser and can detect smaller things, such as atoms or clouds of other electrons.

To obtain their superfast images, Hassan and colleagues used a laser to break up the electron beam into ultrashort pulses. Like the shutter on a camera, those pulses allowed them to capture a new image of electrons on a graphene sheet every 625 attoseconds — roughly a thousand times faster than existing techniques.

The microscope cannot yet capture images of a single electron – this would require extremely high spatial resolution. But by piecing the collected images together, the scientists created a kind of stop-motion movie that shows how a collection of electrons moves through a molecule.

The technique could allow researchers to watch how a chemical reaction occurs or investigate how electrons move through DNA, Hassan says. This information could help scientists create new materials or personalized medicines.

“With this new tool, we’re trying to build a bridge between what scientists can find in the lab and real-life applications that can have an impact on our daily lives,” he says.