Imagine a camera so powerful it can take freeze-frame photographs of a moving electron—an object traveling so fast it could circle the Earth many times in a matter of a second.

Researchers at the University of Arizona, led by Mohammed Hassan, associate professor of physics and optical sciences, have now developed just that: the world’s fastest electron microscope. They believe this development will lead to groundbreaking advancements in physics, chemistry, bioengineering, materials sciences and more.

A transmission electron microscope (TEM) is a tool used by scientists and researchers to magnify objects up to millions of times their actual size to see details too small for a traditional light microscope to detect (by directing beams of electrons through a sample being studied). The interaction between the electrons and the sample is captured by lenses and detected by a camera sensor to generate detailed images of the sample.

The new speed: “attomicroscopy”

To see an electron frozen in place, U of A researchers have generated a single attosecond electron pulse, which is as fast as electrons move, thereby enhancing the microscope’s temporal resolution, like a high-speed camera capturing movements that would otherwise be invisible.

“The improvement of the temporal resolution inside of electron microscopes has been long anticipated and the focus of many research groups—because we all want to see the electron motion,” Hassan said. “These movements happen in attoseconds. But now, for the first time, we are able to attain attosecond temporal resolution with our electron transmission microscope, and we coined it “attomicroscopy.”

“For the first time, we can now see pieces of the electron in motion.”

Citation: Hui, D., Alqattan, H., Sennary, M., Golubev, N. V., & Hassan, M. T. (2024). Attosecond electron microscopy and diffraction. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp5805 (open access)

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