Powerful lab microscopes may soon get a screwy upgrade.
By twisting a stream of electrons into a tornado-like vortex, physicists have created a new type of beam to take snapshots of atoms, biological tissue and tiny computer parts, a team reports in the Jan. 14 Science.
Though they haven’t put one in a microscope yet, such a vortex beam could be used in the near future to take sharper pictures, says Ben McMorran, a physicist who led the research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. What’s more, the beams could possibly grab onto atoms to manipulate them, other researchers say.
To read the rest of the article, click here.