If inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy is not exotic enough for you maybe this is. With this newly developed technique, researchers in Japan have apparently been able to determine "the identity of groups of individual atoms." That's pretty amazing.
The technique developed by Taichi Okuda et al. is known as Synchrotron Radiation Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. Okuda and his colleagues use a synchrotron source to generate a high-intensity x-ray beam that is directed at the sample. As described in Phys. Rev. Lett. 102.105503 (you can find it through ejournals), photons excite an atom's core electrons. The atoms then emit secondary electrons as they relax, and the scanning tunneling microscope is used to detect these emitted electrons. The photoinduced current is specific to a particular type of atom, thus allowing for "element-specific surface imaging."
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