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Magnetic resonance force microscopy with a one-dimensional resolution of 0.9 nanometers

Magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) is a scanning probe technique capable of detecting MRI signals from nanoscale sample volumes, providing a paradigm-changing potential for structural biology and medical research. Thus far, however, experiments have not reached suffcient spatial resolution for retrieving meaningful structural information from samples. In this work, we report MRFM imaging scans demonstrating a resolution of 0.9 nm and a localization precision of 0.6 nm in one dimension. Our progress is enabled by an improved spin excitation protocol furnishing us with sharp spatial control on the MRFM imaging slice, combined with overall advances in instrument stability. From a modeling of the slice function, we expect that our arrangement supports spatial resolutions down to 0.3 nm given suffcient signal-to-noise ratio. Our experiment demonstrates the feasibility of sub-nanometer MRI and realizes an important milestone towards the three-dimensional imaging of macromolecular structures.