It captures images in a *trillionth* of a second.

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See the world’s fastest microscope: It works at such an astonishing speed that it is the first device ever to capture a clear image of moving electrons.

Developed by researchers at the University of Arizona who published their work in the journal ScienceThe microscope uses electron pulses at a speed of a single attosecond – or a trillionth one second – to capture “still images” of subatomic particles that are fast enough to orbit the Earth in a matter of seconds.

This is potentially a groundbreaking advance that could allow scientists to understand what happens to electrons during ultrafast interactions, such as the breaking of a chemical bond.

“For the first time, we can achieve attosecond temporal resolution with our electron transmission microscope – we’ve called it ‘attomicroscopy,'” said study co-author Mohammed Hassan, associate professor of physics and optical sciences at the University of Arkansas, in a statement about the work. “We can see parts of the electron in motion.”

Incremental improvement

Earlier electron microscopes came very close to this feat, reaching speeds of several attoseconds instead of just one.

Yet at the subatomic level, this difference is an eternity: without greater “temporal resolution,” scientists are unable to observe some of the subtleties of an electron’s various interactions as they occur.

From a photographic point of view, the shutter speed or frame rate of the microscopes was simply not fast enough.

Pulsating

To improve this performance, the researchers from Arizona designed their “attomicroscope” to split a laser into an electron pulse and two light pulses. The key is how these work together: It is not enough that the electron pulse – which actually performs the imaging – is super fast.

What happens then is that the first pulse of light excites the target electrons and sets them in motion. This process is carefully synchronized with a second pulse of light, which prepares the electron pulse to strike at the moment the particles are set in motion.

The resulting interactions between the electron beams of the microscope and the sample are recorded by a camera sensor and combined to form an image.

“We hope that with this microscope, the scientific community can understand the quantum physics behind the behavior and motion of an electron,” Hassan said.

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