X-ray spectroscopy with a sub-eV energy resolution can help to resolve subtle spectral details due to minor chemical changes in the sample. It can also open up possibilities to even probe previously unrevealed electronic excitations. Very recently, there have been significant worldwide development efforts to improve the instrumentation and especially crystal analyzers, whose use has become feasible due to the increased brightness of third generation synchrotron sources. At the same time there have been major advances in theoretical and computational techniques, which have been essential in order to gain understanding on the complicated high-resolution spectra. These advancements have given the sub-eV resolution x-ray spectroscopy a possibility to proceed from pioneering experiments to a useful tool in materials science. The presentation will give a short introduction to interaction phenomena and the related theory behind non-resonant and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering processes. The present status of instrumentation and experimental challenges will be summarized. Finally, results from several recent highlight experiments will be shown.



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