UC San Diego physicists have invented a new type of lens-less X-ray microscope capable of penetrating deep into materials and allow viewing of minuscule details at 1 nm scale or one billionth of a meter.
The fascinating thing about this nanoscale-based X-ray microscope is that images are created through a computer program or algorithm and not by a lens.
The researchers report that this algorithm or program can transform diffraction patterns, created by the X-rays that rebound from the nanoscale structures, into fine images. This microscope can instantly be applied in developing compact information storage devices for computers to enable them to retain more memory. This innovation also finds immediate applications in other nanoscience and nanotechnology areas.
Magnetic domains appear like the repeating swirls of fingerprint ridges. As the spaces between the domains get smaller, computer engineers can store more data. Credit: UC San Diego
A graduate student in Shpyrko's lab, Ashish Tripathi has created the algorithm that functions as a lens in the X-ray microscope. Its principle is more or less the same as the computer program that refined blurred images obtained initially by the Hubble Space Telescope.
In order to test the ability of the X-ray microscope to resolve and penetrate materials at the nanoscale, the scientists developed a layered film containing elements such as iron and gadolinium. Such films are being analyzed in the IT industry to produce rapid, tinier, and larger capacity disk drives and computer memory.
Under the lens-less X-ray microscope, the layered iron and gadolinium film, crumples up magnetically to create a sequence of magnetic domains. These domains look like the repetitive swirls of fingerprint ridges. Computer engineers must solve these domains at the nanoscale to allow storing of more and more data into miniature hard drives. As the materials are constructed with thinner fingerprint patterns or smaller magnetic domains, it enables to store more information in a small area inside a material. The adjustment of the X-ray energy could result in utilizing this method to observe various elements in materials in the field of chemistry and to obtain images of cells, viruses and several types of tissues with an excellent spatial resolution in the field of biology, he added.