Microscopy can see nanoscale processes in real time

Researchers at Warwick University, alongside colleges in Japan, developed the method — coined voltage-switching electrochemical microscopy (VSM-SECM) — which can simultaneously provide information on the physical topography of surfaces, as well as localised functional activity.

‘There’s a real opportunity now to properly probe some of these nanoscale processes. If you’re working with nanoscale objects you need nanoscale measurement devices that can really tell you how the surface is acting,’ said collaborator Prof Julie Macpherson of Warwick.

The new technique builds on the principles of scanning probe microscopy, pioneered in the 1990s, where an image of a surface is obtained by mechanically moving a probe in a ‘raster scan’ of the specimen, line by line, recording the interaction.

‘You’re not relying on a light principle anymore so your resolution is controlled by how small you can make the electrode — each pixel is basically a representation of the tip current and that tip current is telling you something about the properties of the surface,’ Macpherson said.