Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42215460›Full record

ArticleNature communications2026

Atom camera: super-resolution scanning microscope of a light pattern with a single ultracold atom.

T Tomita, Y T Chew, R A Villela, T P Mahesh, H Sakai, K Nishimura, T Ando, S de Léséleuc, K Ohmori

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

T TomitaInstitute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Japan. tomita@ims.ac.jp.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2126-1392
Y T ChewInstitute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.
R A VillelaInstitute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8846-2944
T P MaheshInstitute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.
H SakaiCentral Research Laboratory, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0000-0733-8184
K NishimuraCentral Research Laboratory, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0009-6440-2125
T AndoCentral Research Laboratory, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0001-7023-1723
S de LéséleucInstitute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4761-5753
K OhmoriInstitute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Japan. ohmori@ims.ac.jp.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9584-5177

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Sub-micrometer light patterns play a pivotal role in biology, biophysics, and AMO physics, yet their in situ characterization is limited in spatial resolution and sensitivity. Here, we present an atom camera with a single ultracold atom in an optical tweezer as a scanning probe. Measuring the energy shift on the spin states with the long coherence time and polarization-sensitive transitions yields highly sensitive, high-resolution 2D imaging of both intensity and polarization ellipticity. We characterize the polarization of a tightly-focused beam, observing its non-trivial profile. The spatial resolution is fundamentally limited by the atom's position uncertainty, suppressed down to quantum fluctuations (~25 nm) in the motional ground state of the tweezer, with an experimentally obtained upper bound of σ ≤ 96(4) nm. This method enables imaging beyond the diffraction limit, surpassing previous approaches limited by thermal fluctuations of the atom, and provides a powerful tool for designing and analyzing submicron-scale light patterns.

Identifiers

PMID42215460
PMCPMC13221464

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.