diffraction

Diffractive robotics connects, for the first time, untethered robots with imaging techniques that depend on visible light diffraction -- the bending of a light wave when it passes through an opening or around something.

While conventional fluorescence microscopy has been useful for studying cellular structures, it has been limited by the diffraction of light, restricting its ability to resolve features smaller than a few hundred nanometers.

X-ray diffraction and scanning transmission electron microscopy characterized the structure and composition of materials at the nanoscale.

One PSF basically describes how an infinitely small point source of light originating in the sample is widened and spread into a three-dimensional diffraction pattern by the optical system.

"A typical diffraction pattern would produce evenly spaced fringes if we just had a neutron star as a shield," the KU researcher said.