Seeing with atoms.

Throughout history, new scientific methods have led to breakthroughs that themselves have contributed to further technological development and progress. Indeed, this has been the case for techniques that enable the diffraction of x-rays, photons, subatomic particles, and atoms by crystalline materials. The evolution of these approaches has underpinned fundamental discoveries in the physical and chemical properties of materials, up to the nanoscale. On page 724 of this issue, Kanitz et al. (1) report another advance in the field—a new method that diffracts neutral atoms through a solid material. Until now, the transmission and diffraction of atoms through the inside (bulk) of materials have been elusive. The advance paves the way for direct probing of the outermost electron density distribution of crystalline materials, which is critical for understanding of, for example, superconductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]