Superlens

A group of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, is giving new relevance to the term "sharper image" by creating a superlens that can overcome a limitation in physics that has historically constrained the resolution of optical images.

Using a thin film of silver as the lens and ultraviolet (UV) light, the researchers recorded the images of an array of nanowires and the word "NANO" onto an organic polymer at a resolution of about 60 nanometres. In comparison, current optical microscopes can only make out details down to one-tenth the diameter of a red blood cell, or about 400 nanometres.

The breakthrough, reported in the April 22 issue of the journal Science, opens the door to dramatic technological advances in nanoengineering that could eventually lead to DVDs that store the entire contents of the Library of Congress, and computer processors that can quickly search through such a huge volume of data, the researchers said.