Hawkes P.W. (Eds.). Advances in imaging and electron physics 163: Optics of charged particle analyzers

235 p., 2010, Elsevier Inc.
The present volume is almost a thematic volume on sub wavelength microscopy for three of the chapters deal with different aspects of this subject, which is currently the object of much research effort. The two remaining chapters deal with the ‘‘chronon’’ and with the role of microscopy in the fine arts, other aspects of which I hope to cover in future volumes. The volume begins with an account by W.Bacsa of optical interference close to surfaces and ways of using this to achieve sub wavelength resolution. The different families of standing waves are examined and the potential of the methods is described. This is followed by highly unusual contribution by R.H.A. Farias and E. Recami, in which the discretization of time is studied. This leads the authors to recapitulate the familiar theories of the electron and also takes them well beyond ‘‘electron physics’’; many original ideas are put forward. This chapter, which forms a short monograph on the subject, will surely stimulate further discussion. The third chapter brings us back to sub wave length imaging; here, A. Neice discusses the limitations of the various methods. A whole section is devoted to Pendry’s superlens and the concluding chapter examines the limit of resolution. Many optical and electron optical techniques are used to study paintings, frescos and archaeological material. In the next chapter, A. Sever Skapin and P. Ropret show how historical pigments in wall layers can be analyzed by optical and scanning electron microscopy and by energy-dispersive techniques. They apply these methods to samples from a number of churches and other buildings in Slovenia. The volume ends with a long account by M.E. Testorf and M.A. Fiddy on superresolution. This is a wide-ranging chapter that sets out from the Rayleigh limit and Abbe’s theory, after which the notion of degrees of freedom is examined. This is followed by Lukosz superresolution, filters and the Gerchberg—Papoulis algorithm, with a last section on generalized sampling. This nicely complements the earlier chapters on sub wave length imaging, and some of that material is seen here from a different standpoint.