The UK's NFAB has a new sub-miniature scanning electron
microscope which is a completely new concept in electron
microscopy. The microscope is 5 μm long and has atomic
resolution (2 Å) at 500 eV energy and 10 nA of current. The low
energy means it can identify single atoms on a surface as well
as being able to make holograms of large molecules. It has
patented an enabling technology* which will allow a generation
of miniature scanning electron microscopes, multiple-beam
lithography machines and focussed ion beam millers to be
manufactured. These are currently under development and testing
at Salford University and various other European Universities
and nanotechnology companies under an EU-funded collaborative
research grant (CRAFT). This is not useful for actually
manipulating the molecules just for looking, but cheaper and
better resolution would still be nice. They claim the microscope
will have 0.01 nm resolution. Instead of firing electrons from a
tungsten filament, it will shoot them from a single atom