Conceived a century ago, electron microscopes are today standard fare in experimental research laboratories. By imaging a material with electrons, scientists can resolve details 1000 times smaller than is possible with light. These devices can also employ pulsed electron beams to probe transient phenomena, such as the behavior of quasiparticles that a material hosts. Now Michael Yannai of Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and his colleagues demonstrate a way to improve that capability by reducing the energy spread of the electrons in a pulsed imaging beam [1]. Their method leaves the brightness of the beam unchanged, which is important for ultrafast imaging, as the ultrashort pulses used in this method necessarily comprise small numbers of electrons. “Our technique opens the path to many potential time- and energy-resolved explorations that are currently impossible,” says Ido Kaminer, who headed the team behind the research.
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