A team of Japanese scientists has developed a new laser which has the shortest wavelengths ever recorded. The advance could help see microscopic objects like molecules with more clarity than ever.
The team, based at the University of Electro-Communications in Toyko, has created a new atomic X-ray laser which has a wavelength of just 0.15 nanometers — ten times shorter than the previous record. To achieve that, the team bombard a thin sheet of copper foil with X-ray pulses of different energies. That causes the metallic sheet to emit photons, which are seeded into a laser beam by a second X-ray pulse.
via Gizmodo
Image: Michal Vitek/Shutterstock
