Nanoscale Imaging Captures Soft Matter in Liquid Environment

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkley Lab) developed an imaging platform that enabled nondestructive spectroscopic imaging of soft materials with nanometer spatial resolution, under in vitro conditions and external stimuli. Using the Advanced Light Source (ALS) particle accelerator as an infrared light source, the researchers performed the nanometer-scale spatial resolution imaging of proteins in the proteins’ natural liquid environment. They observed how the self-assembly of the proteins was affected by environmental conditions in the surrounding liquid.