A new kind of X-ray microscope, which can penetrate deep within materials, has been developed by physicists at the University of California, San Diego, United States. The nanoscale microscope is unusual not only in that it can see minute details at the scale of a single nanometer, but that its images are produced by means of a powerful computer program, not a lens. The program is able to convert the diffraction patterns produced by X-rays bouncing off the nanoscale structures into resolvable images. Oleg Shpyrko, an assistant professor of physics and head of the research team, said, “The mathematics behind this is somewhat complicated. But what we did is to show that for the first time that we can image magnetic domains with nanometer precision. In other words, we can see magnetic structure at the nanoscale level without using any lenses.” An immediate application of this X-ray microscope is the development of smaller data storage devices for computers, but it should also be applicable to other areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology. “To advance nanoscience and nanotechnology, we have to be able to understand how materials behave at the nanoscale,” said Shpyrko. “We want to be able to make materials in a controlled fashion to build magnetic devices for data storage or, in biology or chemistry, to be able to manipulate matter at nanoscale. And in order to do that we have to be able to see at nanoscale. This technique allows you to do that. It allows you to look into materials with X-rays and see details at the nanoscale.” The scientists’ work was published in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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