THE highest resolution optical image yet taken has been snapped at a lab in New York.
Achim Hartschuh and Lukas Novotny at the University of Rochester have found a way to examine carbon nanotubes with red light, although the tubes are many times thinner than the wavelength of light used in the experiments. The trick is to focus a light beam onto the tip of an extremely fine silver wire 1 nanometre above the nanotubes, creating a strong electromagnetic field. The nanotubes absorb energy from the field, and emit it back at a wavelength which can then be recorded by…
