Applied physics. Subsurface imaging with scanning ultrasound holography.

Every new microscopic imaging technique reveals hidden features but also new challenges. To capture information about substructure features, especially defects and voids, in the next generation of integrated circuits, higher resolution methods of surface imaging will be required. In his Perspective, Diebold discusses results reported in the same issue by Shekhawat and Dravid in which an acoustic scanning holographic imaging technique has been extended to unprecedented spatial resolution. The method has also been used on biological cells, and the hope is that it can be developed further to obtain detailed information about the depth and elastic properties of buried features.