Physicists in the US have made an optical superlens from a thin layer of silver. The lens has a negative refractive index and can be used to image structures with a resolution that is about one sixth the wavelength of light -- thus overcoming the so-called diffraction limit (N Fang et al. 2005 Science 308 534). Xiang Zhang and colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley say that the lens could have many applications, such as imaging nano-scale objects with light.
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