Soft‐X‐Ray Microscopes

AUG 01, 1985

Major developments in sources, optics and detectors for soft x rays promise to help biologists realize the longstanding goal of high‐resolution imaging of biological materials in their natural, even living, state.

DOI: 10.1063/1.880983

Malcolm Howells

Janos Kirz

David Sayre

Günter Schmahl

Biologists have long dreamed of a microscope capable of imaging specimens in their natural state, at molecular or near‐molecular resolution. Physicists have for some years known that the soft‐x‐ray photon has properties that suit it for use as a probe in such microscopy. With the advent of synchrotron radiation sources, and with other technical advances, the difficulties that impeded the development of soft‐x‐ray microscopy have begun to give way, and in 1983 the technique produced the first images ever obtained of a living cell at a near‐molecular resolution of 75 Å.

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References

1. The most useful current reference to the subject is G. Schmahl, D. Rudolph, eds., X‐Ray Microscopy, Springer‐Verlag, Berlin (1984).
This book contains descriptions of the systems in table 1: See D. Rudolph, B. Niemann, G. Schmahl, O. Christ, p. 192;
P. J. Duke, p. 232;
H. Rarback, J. M. Kenney, J. Kirz, M. R. Howells, P. Chang, P. J. Coane, R. Feder, P. J. Houzego, D. P. Kern, D. Sayre, p. 203;
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More about the authors

Malcolm Howells, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

Janos Kirz, State University of New York, Stony Brook.

David Sayre, IBM Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York.

Günter Schmahl, University of Göttingen, West Germany.