Microscopes don’t exactly lie, but they have limitations. Scanning electron microscopes can’t see electrical insulators, and their high energies can actually damage some types of samples. Researchers have now built the first low-energy focused ion beam (FIB) microscope using lithium. The team’s new approach opens up the possibility of creating a whole category of FIBs using any one of up to 20 different elements, greatly increasing the options for imaging, sculpting or characterizing materials.