Physicists at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the University of Hamburg and the research facility DESY have succeeded for the first time in revealing tiny structures using an imaging method that relies on the usual diffraction of light, but which does not require the scattered light to be coherent. With conventional imaging methods using the diffraction of coherent light, scientists have to go to considerable lengths to ensure the coherence of the radiation, i.e. the electromagnetic waves must remain in phase during the scattering process. The new method uses incoherent light instead.
