In a groundbreaking development, researchers at the University of Arizona have created the world’s fastest electron microscope, offering an extraordinary glimpse into the behavior of electrons. This innovation promises to advance numerous scientific disciplines.
A team of researchers at the University of Arizona has accomplished a scientific milestone by developing the fastest electron microscope in the world. This innovative instrument can capture images of electrons in motion, offering the scientific community a fresh perspective on quantum physics.
“These movements happen in attoseconds,” Mohammed Hassan, an associate professor of physics and optical sciences who led the research, said in a news release. “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 see pieces of the electron in motion.”
The breakthrough, detailed in the journal Science Advances, resulted from the collaborative efforts of Hassan’s team, which includes notable contributors such as Nikolay Golubev, assistant professor of physics; Dandan Hui, former research associate; Husain Alqattan, U of A alumnus and current assistant professor of physics at Kuwait University; and Mohamed Sennary, a graduate student.
Their paper, titled “Attosecond Electron Microscopy and Diffraction,” outlines their method of achieving the remarkable feat.
The new microscope’s transformative capability lies in its ability to generate single attosecond electron pulses, which is as fast as electrons themselves move. This advancement allows it to capture movements at a speed that previous ultrafast electron microscopes, which emitted electron pulses at a few attoseconds intervals, could not achieve.
“When you get the latest version of a smartphone, it comes with a better camera,” Hassan added. “This transmission electron microscope is like a very powerful camera in the latest version of smartphones; it allows us to take pictures of things we were not able to see before – like electrons. With this microscope, we hope the scientific community can understand the quantum physics behind how an electron behaves and how an electron moves.”
Building on the Nobel Prize-winning research of Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier, Hassan and team utilized a powerful laser split into two components. These two ultra-short pulses – one to excite the sample and the other to generate a gating pulse – are synchronized to control the observation moment of electron movements on an atomic scale.
The traditional use of transmission electron microscopes, which magnify objects millions of times by directing beams of electrons through the sample, received a significant enhancement in temporal resolution.
This microscope can now freeze-frame an electron’s motion, offering an unprecedented tool for advancements in physics, chemistry, bioengineering, materials sciences and many other fields.
“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,” added Hassan.
Indeed, this development brings the scientific community a step closer to comprehending and harnessing the fundamentally elusive phenomena of electron movement. Through “attomicroscopy,” researchers can now visualize processes that were previously too fast to capture, potentially revolutionizing our understanding and manipulation of materials at the atomic level.