Hollow-tip scanning photoelectron microscopy

A new type of microscopy based on scanning in vacuum by a beam of charged particles transmitted through a hollow probe has been implemented. This approach provides controllable motion of spatially localized ion, electron, molecular (atomic), and soft X-ray beams and investigation of the surface in the shear force mode. In the photoelectron mode, in which electrons are transmitted through a $2$-мm quartz capillary, a surface profile of gadolinium irradiated by $400$-nm femtosecond laser pulses has been visualized with a subwave spatial resolution. The new method of microscopy opens an opportunity of investigations in the field of nanometer local photodesorption of molecular ions (one of the last ideas of V. S. Letokhov).