IBM has produced a short film, A Boy and His Atom, by manipulating carbon atoms atop a copper sheet. Really a rather neat accomplishment.
What I’m wondering is why, if we can see the atoms that make up the actor in this film, we can’t see the atoms of the copper sheet? Copper atoms are bigger than carbon atoms.
The write-up on Yahoo! says they are carbon monoxide molecules, as does the YouTube version is here.
It does seem to be on a sort of dimpled surface. Perhaps that is the copper atoms, I don’t know, or perhaps they don’t show up because the “microscope” has, in effect, a very narrow depth of field.
I wonder if this will win an Academy Award for technical achievement.
Neat!
It doesn’t see the atoms, it feels their electric charge. It has a very narrow range. It doesn’t show the atoms on the surface because they didn’t move the needle down far enough to see them.
However, you may notice ripples on the surface. These are some of the free electrons in the copper sheet surface. They cluster in these ripple patterns and the needle picks up their shape.
Wait, they’re molecules? Not atoms?
I cry fraud! Pish and tosh to them.
So…they’re CO stars?
The electrons in a metal are spread out uniformly among the atoms, in a sort of sea. You can’t really say that the electrons belong to any particular nucleus, and so the “surface” is smooth even on scales comparable to the size of individual atoms.
They should have called the movie The Mighty Atom. Oh wait! Never mind…
- YouTube
I don’t think this will catch on until they make the scanning tunneling microscope glasses lighter and less expensive.
That is a TERRIBLE PUN!!