Nature sets a limit on how tightly light can be focused. Even in microscopes, two different objects that are closer than this limit would appear to be one. But within a special class of layered crystalline materials—known as van de Waals crystals—these rules can, sometimes, be broken. In these special cases, light can be confined without any limit in these materials, making it possible to see even the smallest objects clearly. In their experiments, the Columbia researchers studied the van der Waals crystal called tungsten diselenide, which is of high interest for its potential integration in electronic and photonic technologies because its unique structure and strong interactions with light.