Abstract
IMAGES of electron clouds in gas-phase atoms have been photographed1,2 at a resolution limit of 0.1 Å through a two-stage holographic microscope based on Gabor's principle of image reconstruction3. Information encoded on to holograms with electron radiation in the first stage was transformed into a portrayal of electron density in the second stage with the aid of an optical laser. Suitable pictures of gas-phase molecules could not be obtained because of signal-to-noise problems. These problems have now been overcome to a considerable extent and we report here the reconstruction of spherically averaged molecular images displaying light atoms in the vicinity of heavy atoms. Bond lengths can easily be measured with a ruler.
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References
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BARTELL, L., JOHNSON, R. Molecular images by electron-wave holography. Nature 268, 707–708 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/268707a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/268707a0
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