• Question: In the future could glasses that are so magnified you could see things on the nano scale be made?

    Asked by mfinn to Kate, Kieren, Nicola, Rowena, Roy on 13 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      No. We are limited by the wavelength of light. We use high energy electrons whose wavelength is determined by their speed for higher resolution pictures – look up TEM!!! You can see atoms wiyh yhis microscope!

    • Photo: Kate Nicholson

      Kate Nicholson answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      The best we can do with a light microscope is 30nm, and that is by playing tricks with fluorescent probes, although I personally think 60nm is more realistic for a clear image. This is beyond the diffraction limit for visible light and about as good as it will ever get.
      Just like Rowena says, we use electron beams instead of light to see smaller than this. You could couple this to a google glass though – I would love it if they could, it would make driving the electron microscope so much easier.

    • Photo: Nicola Rogers

      Nicola Rogers answered on 15 Mar 2014:

      without playing too many high tech tricks, the best we could achieve with glasses is 200 nm really – although this is still pretty small!

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