X-Ray Microscope That Enables Nanovision Developed

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X-ray glases. Now, a new microscope has been developed by scientists which they say can penetrate deep within materials and see details as small as a billionth of a meter without even using a lens.

The new microscope, developed by physicists at University of California, San Diego, uses a powerful computer programme to convert patterns from X-rays bouncing off materials into images of objects as small as a one nanometer across, on the scale of a few atoms.

Unlike Superman''s X-ray vision, which allows him to look through walls to see the bad guys beyond, the new technology could be used to look at different elements inside a material, or to image viruses, cells and tissue in great detail, study researcher Oleg Shpyrko said.

But one of the most important applications, Shpyrko said, is in nano-sized engineering.

"We can make things at nanoscale, but we can''t see them very well. So our paper pushes the characterisation forward," he was quoted as saying by LiveScience.

Astronomers use similar programmes to remove distortions from their images and even to sharpen the pictures sent back by the Hubble telescope, but the nanovision technique is new.

The computer programme essentially unscrambles a complex pattern from X-rays bouncing off an object to form an image, the researchers reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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