Developments in instrumentation are essential to open new fields of science. This clearly applies to electron microscopy, where recent progress in all hardware components and in digitally assisted data acquisition and processing has radically extended the domains of application. The demonstrated breakthroughs in electron optics, such as the successful design and practical realization and the use of correctors, filters and monochromators, and the permanent progress in detector efficiency have pushed forward the performance limits, in terms of spatial resolution in imaging, as well as for energy resolution in electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and for sensitivity to the identification of single atoms. As a consequence, the objects of the nanoworld, of natural or artificial origin, can now be explored at the ultimate atomic level. The improved energy resolution in EELS, which now encompasses the near-IR/visible/UV spectral domain, also broadens the range of available information, thus providing a powerful tool for the development of nanometre-level photonics. Furthermore, spherical aberration correctors offer an enlarged gap in the objective lens to accommodate nanolaboratory-type devices, while maintaining angström-level resolution for general characterization of the nano-object under study.