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I want to know if there exists some mathematical limits to what extent we can perform magnification. Like we can now build devices to see some objects as small as 1 micron(or even smaller than that). Now I want know if we can build a device which can magnify a particle having size equal to electron to a extent that we can see it.

Note: Please note that I want to see them literally, like I see ants in my house. I don't want to just feel or prove there presence by other means(their bite marks on my fingers) .

Abinash Dash
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  • Related https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-microscope-magnification-limits – Farcher Sep 06 '17 at 07:47

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There are two limits you can come across. One is soft, the other is hard. The soft limit is brightness. The higher your magnification, the less bright the image. This is because you distribute the same number of photons across a larger part of your eye. Very high magnification can involve lights that are bright enough to alter the chemical structure of the subject.

The hard limit is diffraction. Diffraction limits are caused by the wave behavior of light. As you get close to 1/2 wavelength of the light, you run into a hard limit on your ability to distinguish two point sources from each other. Very high magnification systems rely on UV or X-rays because they have a shorter wavelength. Even higher magnification systems turn to beams of electrons, which have even shorter [de-Broglie] wavelengths

Cort Ammon
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  • While I was reading about diffraction limit, I found this http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-03/worlds-most-powerful-optical-microscope-can-let-researchers-see-inside-viruses-and-human-cells-no-ele – Abinash Dash Sep 06 '17 at 10:32
  • @AbinashDash Nice spy. I had to do some digging in return, and found this article which dug into the details of how they beat the limit. It looks like that solution involved near-field imaging, where the lens is within a few nanometers of the target (the diffraction limit is only a hard limit for far-field imaging). The smaller your object, the closer you'll have to get, until you might as well be using an electron microscope. The other interesting approach involved structured light and floroscopy, which had a ... – Cort Ammon Sep 06 '17 at 15:08
  • ... neat tradeoff between spatial and temporal resolutions. – Cort Ammon Sep 06 '17 at 15:08
  • Now it's becoming more difficult for me to grasp each of the word you are using for explanation (I'm not very good at physics,but i'm trying). But I'll try to find there meanings and post back if i find something more... Good digging anyway. – Abinash Dash Sep 07 '17 at 10:45
  • @AbinashDash Sorry, half of those were intended as google search topics rather than explainations. Stack Exchange comments are rather short. The long and short of it: diffraction limits appear to work like many other laws in physics. They are immutable as long as you stick to experimental setups that fit within the domain that they are best at, but there's all sorts of sneaky ways to skirt around them when you're smarter than the average bear! – Cort Ammon Sep 07 '17 at 14:50