VERSATILE ULTRAFAST ELECTRON DIFFRACTION SETUP

超快激光器提供了“第一束光”，脉冲足够短，可以在相关的时间尺度上监测原子的运动;低于百万分之一秒，可以像定格摄影一样捕捉飞行中的原子。然而，光学显微镜的空间分辨率仅限于大病毒的大小。这是大约一万倍太粗糙观察分子结构在其最精细的细节，下降到其基本的积木-原子。

Ultrafast lasers provided the "first light" in sufficiently short pulses to monitor atomic motion on the relevant timescales; below a millionth of a millionth of a second, to literally catch atoms on the fly as in stop-motion photography. However, the spatial resolution in optical microscopy is limited to about the size of a big virus. This is about ten thousand times too coarse to observe the molecular structure at its finest detail, down to its fundamental building blocks - atoms.