A MICROSCOPE that fires pulses of antimatter can pick up defects that no
other microscope can detect, say the German scientists who designed it.
Antimatter microscopes could be invaluable to people who make silicon chips.
Werner Triftshäuser at Munich’s Military University used a radioactive
isotope of sodium that produces positrons—anti-electrons—as it
decays. The positrons pass through a series of electric fields that bunch them
into pulses before they strike the target on the microscope stage.
When positrons collide with a material, they recombine with electrons,
producing a flash of light. But since positrons are positively charged, they…
