Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have demonstrated the world's fastest ultrafast optical microscope, a tool that gives them the ability to explore and visualize atomic matter with an extreme level of speed, for the first time ever.
The microscope, which was built by the research team, possessses a level of power that is 1,000 times that of a conventional optical microscope. Furthermore, the "image frame" rate, the speed captured by the team, is 1 trillion times faster than the blink of an eye, allowing them to make real-time, slow-motion movies of light interacting with electrons in nanomaterials.
"This is the first time anyone has been able to probe matter on its natural time and length scale," Markus Raschke, co-author of the study, said in a press release. "We imaged and measured the motions of electrons in real space and time, and we were able to make it into a movie to help us better understand the fundamental physical processes."
Molecules, atoms and charged particles make up matter, also referred to as the "stuff of the universe." These various forms of matter are the basis of important processes, including photosynthesis, energy conversion and biological function. Using a technique called "plasmonic nanofocusing," the team focused extremely short laser pulses onto tiny pieces of gold film matter using a nanometer-sized metal tip.
"Our study brings nanoscale microscopy to the next level, with the ability to capture detailed images evolving on extremely fast time scales," said Vasily Kravtsov, first author of the paper.
Unlike electron microscopes, the newly created technique does not require high-vacuum techniques and shows great promise for use in studying extremely fast processes, such as charge and energy transport in soft matter.
"This work expands the reach of optical microscopes," Raschke said. "Using this technique, researchers can image the elementary processes in materials ranging from battery electrodes to solar cells, helping to improve their efficiency and lifetime."
The findings were published in the Feb. 8 issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
