In a joint research project, scientists from the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI), the Technische Universität Berlin (TU) and the University of Rostock have managed for the first time to image free nanoparticles in a laboratory experiment using a high-intensity laser source. Previously, the structural analysis of these extremely small objects via single-shot diffraction was only possible at large-scale research facilities using so-called XUV and x-ray free electron lasers. Their pathbreaking results facilitate the highly-efficient characterisation of the chemical, optical and structural properties of individual nanoparticles and have just been published in Nature Communications. The lead author of the publication is junior researcher Dr Daniela Rupp who carried out the project at TU Berlin and is now starting a junior research group at MBI.