(May 14, 2015) Soft matter encompasses a broad swath of materials,
including liquids, polymers, gels, foam and – most importantly – biomolecules.
At the heart of soft materials, governing their overall properties and
capabilities, are the interactions of nano-sized components. Observing the
dynamics behind these interactions is critical to understanding key biological
processes, such as protein crystallization and metabolism, and could help
accelerate the development of important new technologies, such as artificial
photosynthesis or high-efficiency photovoltaic cells. Observing these dynamics
at sufficient resolution has been a major challenge, but this challenge is now
being met with a new non-invasive nanoscale imaging technique that goes by the
acronym of CLAIRE.