lens with ten times the resolution of any current lens, making it a powerful new tool for the biological sciences has been developed by researchers at the University of Sydney.
"This advance means we can unlock previously inaccessible information on the structure of molecules, their chemical make-up and the presence of certain proteins," said Alessandro Tuniz, lead author of an article on the lens published in Nature Communications today.
Tuniz, a postdoctoral associate at the University, said, "This opens up an entirely new tool for biological studies. It could allow earlier skin cancer diagnosis, because smaller melanomas can be recognised. For breast cancer, it can also be used to more accurately check that all traces of a tumour have been cut out during surgery."
The four member research team from the University's School of Physics, including Alessandro Tuniz, are all authors on the paper. They created the lens using fibre optic manufacturing technology.
The lens is a metamaterial - a material with completely new properties not found in nature.
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