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Nature Nanotechnology 3, 643–644 (1 November 2008) | doi:10.1038/nnano.2008.328

Nanoscale magnetometry: Microscopy with single spins

Christian Degen

Scientists have been searching for tools that are sensitive enough to measure the faint magnetic moment of a single electronic or nuclear spin for decades. Because many chemical elements carry a nuclear magnetic moment, a technique that could routinely image nuclear magnetism on the nanometre scale would allow researchers to extract useful information from materials, such as the chemical identity of atoms or their three-dimensional arrangement in molecules.