Imaging techniques articles within Nature Physics

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  • News & Views |

    The ability to extract information from diffuse background signals in ultrafast electron diffraction experiments now enables a direct view of the formation of topological defects during a light-induced phase transition.

    • Isabella Gierz

  • News & Views |

    Permanent deformation in solids results from atoms not aligning with the external stress causing the deformation. Detecting such non-affine atomic rearrangements and connecting them to measurable mechanical effects is now shown to be feasible by means of high-energy X-ray diffraction.

    • Saswati Ganguly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coulomb interactions in free-electron beams are usually seen as an adverse effect. The creation of distinctive number states with one, two, three and four electrons now reveals unexpected opportunities for electron microscopy and lithography from Coulomb correlations.

    • Rudolf Haindl
    • , Armin Feist
    •  & Claus Ropers

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    A scanning nitrogen-vacancy microscope is used to image ferroelectric domains in piezoelectric and improper ferroelectric samples with high sensitivity. The technique relies on the nitrogen-vacancy’s Stark shift produced by the samples’ electric field.

    • William S. Huxter
    • , Martin F. Sarott
    •  & Christian L. Degen

  • Article |

    Hexagonal boron nitride is a common component of 2D heterostructures. Defects implanted in boron nitride crystals can be used to perform spatially resolved sensing of properties, including temperature, magnetism and current.

    • A. J. Healey
    • , S. C. Scholten
    •  & J.-P. Tetienne

  • Article |

    Artificial spin ice formed of nanomagnets arranged on a lattice mimics frustrated magnetism seen in condensed matter. By controlling magnetic interactions, theoretically predicted phase transitions are now observed in artificial kagome-lattice spin ice.

    • Kevin Hofhuis
    • , Sandra Helen Skjærvø
    •  & Laura Jane Heyderman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Visualizing the structural dynamics of isolated molecules would help to understand chemical reactions, but this is difficult for complex structures. Intense femtosecond X-ray pulses allow the full imaging of exploding photoionized molecules, in this case, with eleven atoms.

    • Rebecca Boll
    • , Julia M. Schäfer
    •  & Till Jahnke

  • Comment |

    Scientific progress has always been driven by the ability to build an instrument to answer a specific question. But spreading the news of how to replicate that tool is an evolving art, ripe for an open-source revolution.

    • Georg E. Fantner
    •  & Andrew C. Oates

  • News & Views |

    Iridescent mother of pearl sports a complex structure that eludes standard imaging techniques. Now, a nanotomographic method provides high resolution 3D insight into the topological defects underpinning this composite material.

    • Rebecca A. Metzler

  • Article |

    Symmetry breaking is essential for polarization of cells and generation of left–right body asymmetry. Here the authors investigate the arrangement of hair cells in zebrafish and show that mirror-symmetric patterns arise from a combination of biochemical and mechanical symmetry-breaking events.

    • A. Erzberger
    • , A. Jacobo
    •  & A. J. Hudspeth

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    The Compact Linear Collider is a proposed high-luminosity electron–positron collider that can reach TeV-scale energies. Its accelerator design and physics programme, mainly focusing on precision measurements and new physics searches, are discussed.

    • Eva Sicking
    •  & Rickard Ström

  • Letter |

    The authors demonstrate that individual atoms on a surface can be detected and distinguished from each other with subångström resolution using the electron spin resonance.

    • Philip Willke
    • , Kai Yang
    •  & Christopher P. Lutz

  • Article |

    Quantum fluctuations in space and time can now be directly imaged using a scanning superconducting quantum interference device. The technique allows access to the local dynamics of a system close to a quantum phase transition.

    • A. Kremen
    • , H. Khan
    •  & B. Kalisky

  • Letter |

    Overlaying two transparent phase masks in a light beam results in a far-field achromatic intensity pattern. This effect lies at the basis of a polychromatic far-field interferometer for use in X-ray phase-contrast imaging without absorption gratings.

    • Houxun Miao
    • , Alireza Panna
    •  & Han Wen

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