Scientists from the University of Michigan, and the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, have produced a spot of light only two-millionths of an inch wide, narrower than the wavelength of light; this is a key step toward replacing electron microscopes with an optical microscope using the submicroscopic light spots to see molecule-size matter which does not normally diffract light due to its relatively large wavelength: it may also lead to improvement of optical memories by enabling more information to be stored over an area, and to miniaturisation of parts for computers using optics instead of electrons; the researchers say that they achieved the breakthrough by plugging the tip of a pipette that tapers to 50 nanometres – too narrow for many photons to get through – with a crystal of the anthracene hydrocarbon and focussing a beam of ultraviolet light on it; this causes the the crystal to fluoresce, producing a 50 nanometre spot of blue light at the tip of the pipette.
