The US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory installed a custom-built electron microscope that represents a fundamental leap forward in materials science research. The scanning transmission electron microscope at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials delivers energy resolution 200 times sharper than existing instruments. It enables scientists to examine atomic structure, chemical composition, and electronic behavior simultaneously. A pair of secondary electron detectors can simultaneously image the top and bottom surfaces of a sample with atomic precision. Yimei Zhu, senior physicist leading Brookhaven’s advanced electron microscopy group, emphasized that the instrument pushes the current limits of microscope instrumentation.