TY - JOUR AU - Yavaş, Hasan AU - Sundermann, Martin AU - Chen, Kai AU - Amorese, Andrea AU - Severing, Andrea AU - Gretarsson, Hlynur AU - Haverkort, Maurits W. AU - Tjeng, Liu Hao TI - Direct imaging of orbitals in quantum materials JO - Nature physics VL - 15 SN - 1745-2481 CY - Basingstoke PB - Nature Publishing Group M1 - PUBDB-2019-01970 SP - 559 – 562 PY - 2019 N1 - © Springer Nature Limited AB - The electronic states of quantum materials based on transition-metal, rare-earth and actinide elements are dominated by electrons in the d and f orbitals intertwined with the strong band formation of the solid. Until now, to estimate which specific orbitals contribute to the ground state and thereby determine their physical properties we have had to rely on theoretical calculations combined with spectroscopy. Here, we show that s-core-level non-resonant inelastic X-ray scattering can directly image the active orbital in real space, without the necessity for any modelling. The power and accuracy of this new technique is shown using the textbook example, x<sup>2</sup> − y<sup>2</sup> / 3z<sup>2</sup> − r<sup>2</sup> orbital of the Ni<sup>2+</sup> ion in NiO single crystal. LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000470086800018 DO - DOI:10.1038/s41567-019-0471-2 UR - https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/421380 ER -