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The future of imaging extremely small objects may come down to doughnut-shaped beams of light, according to a study from researchers at and the Department of Physics.

The study explored the challenge of viewing nanodevices, or machines that are too small or delicate to see with traditional microscopes. In the research, physicists generated beams of light, then twisted those beams into the shape of a vortex. (When such beams shine on a flat object, they make the shape of a doughnut.) Next, the researchers aimed their beams at small objects and examined how the light scattered.

The researchers reported that their doughnut beams could map out certain kinds of nanodevices in never-before-seen detail—and could even spot defects in devices that were just 10 to 100 nanometers in size, or many times smaller than a millionth of an inch.