Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have pushed back the barrier of how small we can see -- to a record, atom-scale 0.6 angstrom. The Energy Department's national laboratory also held the previous record at 0.7 angstrom.
In a Sept. 17 article in the journal Science, Stephen J. Pennycook, senior physicist at the lab's Condensed Matter Science Division, and his colleagues wrote that they achieved the 0.6-angstrom image resolution using a state-of-the-art electron microscope and new computerized imaging technology.
An angstrom is about 100,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair.
NPR's Michele Norris talks with Pennycook about the microscopic breakthrough.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
