Scientists achieved a record level of visual detail with an imaging technique that could help...
The researchers obtained the image using a technique called electron ptychography.
The beam moves infinitesimally as the electrons are fired, so they hit the sample from slightly different angles each time-sometimes they pass through cleanly, and other times they hit atoms and bounce around inside the sample on their way out.
Based on the speckle pattern generated by billions of electrons, machine-learning algorithms can calculate where the atoms were in the sample and what their shapes might be.
Previously, electron ptychography had only been used to image extremely flat samples: those merely one to a few atoms thick.
Invented in the early 1930s, standard electron microscopes made it possible to see objects such as polioviruses, which are smaller than the wavelengths of visible light.
Electron microscopes had a limit: increasing their resolution required raising the energy of the electron beam-and eventually the necessary energy would become so great that it would damage the sample.
Early versions only worked with visible light and x-rays, not the electron beams required to image atomic-size objects.
Meanwhile scientists kept finding ways to improve electron microscopes, which worked so well that electron ptychography could not keep up.
To make this happen, engineers need to know what they are working with at an atomic level-which means taking advantage of technologies such as electron ptychography.
In order for electron ptychography to lead to a new breakthrough for your cell phone or laptop, it must do more than take a picture-it has to be capable of precisely locating an individual atom in a material.