A joint research team led by Professor Yong-Hoon Cho and Assistant Professor YongKeun Park of the KAIST Department of Physics has developed an ultra-high resolution lens with which one can observe images in the range of 100 nm, in 2-D, all in real time. This is a feat that cannot be achieved by traditional optical lenses due to the diffraction limit of light.

This groundbreaking lens was the result of a follow-up study to research conducted last April that led to the development of the world’s first “superlens,” with 3 times the resolution of its conventional counterpart. This “superlens” technology has the potential to be applied to ultra-precision semiconductor processing and the observation of intracellular structures.

The traditional optical lens uses diffraction of light, but due to the diffraction limit the lens cannot be focused on objects smaller in size than the wavelength of the visible light used i.e. 200 to 300 nm. The reason that one is unable to observe nanospecimen through the everyday optical lens is that the scattered light from the object, which contains key information required to form its image, does not reach the microscope.

By spraying a heavily light-scattering, paint-like material on the object, the research team manipulated the high-frequency near-field that forms around the object, hence the scattering information, to obtain a slither of image data. From there on, the team “reversed time” to calculate and recover the original scattered form from the information retrieved earlier on, a method akin to working out the original position of an object by retracing the steps of its projectile.

Professor Park said, “This technology we have developed can be used as a core platform in any field that requires optical measurements and control” and “The original electron microscope had the disadvantage of killing cells, but with this technology one can make ultra-high resolution observations without destroying any cells.” The research was published in the September online issue of the esteemed journal Physical Review Letters.