The world’s fastest microscope captures electrons down to the attosecond

Breakthrough in Electron Microscopy

Electron microscopy, a technique that has been around for almost a century, has reached a new milestone with a transmission electron microscope capturing an electron with unprecedented clarity, revealing its individual components. This breakthrough, termed “attomicroscopy,” is expected to have a significant impact on the fields of quantum physics, biology, and chemistry.

The achievement is the result of a team led by experts at the University of Arizona, with their findings published in a recent study in Science Advances. Mohammed Hassan, an associate professor at UA, compares transmission electron microscopes to a smartphone camera, highlighting the improved capabilities of the latest version.

Researchers have long aimed to understand the behavior and movement of electrons at a quantum level, which is now made possible by this advanced microscope.

[Related: Recent Nobel Prize winners in physics made groundbreaking measurements on electrons at the attosecond level.]

While electron microscopes have been in use since the 1930s, the modern transmission electron microscopes have revolutionized imaging capabilities by magnifying objects millions of times beyond what traditional light microscopes can achieve. By utilizing precise electron laser beams and advanced camera sensors, these microscopes offer unparalleled temporal resolution, capturing atomic-scale events in real-time.

To achieve the one-attosecond benchmark in electron microscopy, researchers developed a new microscope that utilizes ultrashort light pulses to capture electron motion with unprecedented detail. By synchronizing light pulses and timing electron pulses, scientists can now observe atomic events at an attosecond-level resolution.

This advancement in temporal resolution opens up new possibilities for studying electron motion and its connection to the structural dynamics of matter in various domains. The attosecond microscope is expected to drive advancements in quantum physics, chemistry, and biology, paving the way for real-life applications in these fields.