Scientists working out of MIT's Nuclear Reactor Laboratory have now invented and built a high-resolution neutron microscope, a feat that required developing new approaches to neutron optics.

 

Why would anyone want to use neutron imaging to study materials? Optical microscopes tell you what the reflectivity of the surface of a material is, but little else. X-ray microscopes tell you what the mass density of the insides of an object is, but again, little of any structure that isn't mirrored in the density of the material.