The World's Best Microscope: TEAM 0.5

As if there weren't enough interesting technology stories this week, Berkeley Lab announced the completed installation of, "the World's Best Microscope...capable of producing images with half‑angstrom resolution (half a ten-billionth of a meter), less than the diameter of a single hydrogen atom," and named TEAM (Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope) 0.5. (version 1 is scheduled to come out next year).

What makes the microscope so great is that it has been corrected to adjust for spherical aberration, creating an intensely clearer image with extremely high resolution. The next version is being created with an additional correction for chromosomal aberration, or aberration caused by the variance of wavelengths of light (differences in color and strength cause light to be refracted at different angles through a lens).

Even though TEAM 1 isn't scheduled to come out until next year, TEAM 0.5 is still the best microscope ever invented, and was built for the Department of Energy, which will allow public use as early as October 2008. The image from the microscope will be transmitted to a screen similar to a high definition flat panel TV, located in what will be the microscope control room.

Reportedly, one will be able to differentiate individual atoms with TEAM 0.5, and researchers have already tested it out, making "a series of images of two gold crystals connected by a 'nanobridge' only a few dozen atoms wide. From each exposure to the next, individual gold atoms could be seen changing positions." (Press Release)