A group of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, is giving new relevance to the term "sharper image" by creating a superlens that can overcome a limitation in physics that has historically constrained the resolution of optical images. The breakthrough, reported in the April 22 issue of the journal Science, opens the door to dramatic technological advances in nanoengineering that could eventually lead to DVDs that store the entire contents of the Library of Congress, and computer processors that can quickly search through such a huge volume of data. In the long run, this line of research could lead to even higher resolution imaging for distant objects, the researchers said. This includes more detailed views of other planets as well as of human movement through surveillance satellites. |