Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan Themis transmission electron microscope pushes back the barrier of how small details scientists can see in materials, paving the way for advances in understanding and creating nanoscale materials crucial to future technologies. ORNL’s Titan Themis uses state-of-the-art, aberration-correcting electron optics combined with a high-angle annular dark-field detector. Because the resolution of an image relies on how precisely the lenses can focus, correcting aberrations or imperfections results in sharper images and smaller visible details. At ORNL’s Titan Themis, scientists can now get an atomic-level view of a region the diameter of the average speck of dust. Such atomic-scale views have the potential to revolutionize scientists’ understanding of how things work at their foundations – the interaction of energy, magnetic fields, and other physical effects within materials — leading to innovations.