This could be big for the development of new sensors and quantum devices. Ultrafast electron microscope (UEM) at Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) enables the visualization and investigation of phenomena at the nanoscale and on time frames of less than a trillionth of a second.

When gold nanoparticle sat on a flat sheet of graphene, the plasmonic field was symmetric. But when the gold nanoparticle was positioned close to a graphene edge, the plasmonic field concentrated much more strongly near the edge region.

A paper based on the study, ?"Visualization of plasmonic couplings using ultrafast electron microscopy," appeared in the June 21 edition of Nano Letters.

Nanoletters – Visualization of Plasmonic Couplings Using Ultrafast Electron Microscopy