University of California researchers have discovered a way to convert evanescent (near-field) light waves into "normal" light waves so that they can be detected by standard microscopes. A recently-developed silver-film "superlens" is placed within 35 nanometres of the surface, and corrugations in the film's surface diffract the evanescent waves, converting them into normal light waves that can be captured using a conventional microscope. As a result, the system was able to distinguish two nanowires placed within 70 nanometres of each other, more than three times closer than is possible using conventional methods.
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