Now that's an impressive capability.

The Bad Astronomer periodically makes posts that show just how cool some astro phenomenon or astro observational capability can be. In keeping with this idea, I find this paper to be just damned impressive. (Apologies for the subscription-only link.) The investigators at Oxford University have one of the best and fanciest transmission electron microscopes (TEM) in the world. In TEM, a highly focused (on the atomic scale!) beam of electrons is fired through a very thin (under 100 nm thick) sample, and the transmitted electrons are analyzed as the beam is scanned over the sample surface. By using very clever electron optics techniques (aberration correction) and the right choice of samples, the investigators have been able to watch the motion of single atoms and few-atom clusters (of praesodymium, which has a big atomic number and therefore interacts strongly with the electron beam) within a carbon nanotube. They can study the formation of 1d crystals this way. Very impressive imaging tool. I want one :-)