Researchers at Cornell University took the clearest image of an atom ever. With the help of the new noise reduction algorithm, the images have such a high resolution, the research team said that they have almost reached the limit of possible.

These images were taken from atoms in a protopraseodymium (PrScO3) crystal, magnified 100 million times. It can be clearly seen that the atoms are bright spots surrounded by red "clouds." According to the researchers, these are blurs caused by the shaking of the atoms themselves.

The unprecedented clarity comes from the combination of things. The first is a general technology called electronic ptychography, which works by scanning the pattern of how electrons are scattered from the target material. Several different scans are completed, and there are overlapping areas between each scan. The instrument pays attention to the changes in these overlapping areas between scans. This allows them to better determine the shape of the object creating the pattern.

The detector itself-known as the electron microscope pixel array detector (EMPAD)-uses a blurred beam to capture a wider range of data first. Then, through a series of algorithms to reconstruct the data to correct this blur, and finally create an image with a resolution of picometers or one thousandth of a nanometer.

"Through these new algorithms, we are now able to correct all the blurring of the microscope to the fact that the biggest blurring factor we leave behind is the fact that the atom itself oscillates, because this is what happens to the atom at a finite temperature," the lead author of the study. Wei Mueller said. "When we talk about temperature, what we actually measure is the average speed of atomic jitter."

In fact, the team stated that at this scale, the image is approaching the physical limit of the highest possible resolution. In other words, some measures can be taken to reduce jitter blur-use heavier atoms with less jitter, or cool the sample to absolute zero, where the motion stops. But even so, quantum fluctuations will still produce some ambiguity.

The researchers said that this breakthrough can be used to observe quantum computer components or biological imaging at close range.

The research was published in the journal Science.