The Imaging of Individual Atoms

Atomic structural analysis methods, such as x-ray diffraction, are useful but very indirect ways of imaging. More desirable are direct methods, which show straightforwardly the positions of atoms and molecules. In his Perspective, Jefferson describes the evolution of direct atomic scale imaging and, in particular, results presented in the same issue by Nellist and Pennycook ( p. 413 ) on imaging of catalytic surfaces.