Atoms are impressively small basic units of matter that congregate into everything in the universe. Countless numbers of various atoms combine to create everything we see; books, cars, laptops, and our bodies all contain atoms. Life itself is influenced by the interactions between these atoms. Yet, these insanely small building blocks are unnoticed and ignored by practically everyone every day. No one sees things as individual atoms. Humans do not look at one another and see an infinite number of individual atoms, instead each person is seen as one, whole being. Does this mean we are incapable of seeing just one atom?
A recent study has put this question to the test by capturing a photograph of a single strontium atom (the small dot in the center of the picture above). David Nadlinger of Oxford University recently captured a photo of strontium using a standard digital camera with the help of quantum lab equipment. The quantum equipment is important for ionizing the atom, which is then held in-place due to the charge by an ion-trap apparatus. Lasers are then used to help illuminate the atom, thus allowing a photo to be taken.
While this impressive study shows that a lab can display a single atom, it is still impossible for humans to see a single atom in nature. Atoms are far too small to be seen with the naked eye, but it is still cool that a standard camera can show us what an atom looks like after manipulation. Further tests could lead to capturing strings of hundreds of ions, as subsequent tests have already captured up to nine ions in a row. Quantum mechanics and like fields will benefit more from further studies in the future, but from a biological perspective the study is still interesting as atoms are the basic units of matter.
Article referenced: https://www.livescience.com/61763-single-atom-ion-trap-photo.html
Posted by Patrick Munley (2)
It is pretty crazy that technology is actually capable of taking pictures of atoms. Did the article mention any specific directions that they plan on taking this tech? Now that they are able to take pictures of atoms, where do they plan on going from here? It will be very interesting to see how this could potentially impact future studies in quantum mechanics.
ReplyDeleteHarris Jackson (1)
I was actually wondering the same thing. The article does not make it very clear. However, I found a couple of links that might be helpful or interesting for you. The first link appears to be Nadlinger's website. The second link contains similar studies.
Deletehttps://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/research/ion-trap-quantum-computing-group
https://users.physics.ox.ac.uk/~Steane/qec.html
Patrick Munley
It's so cool that we can see an individual atom with the naked eye. It would be nice if they had included in the picture an object or ruler as a scale so we could really see how small it is. I also wonder why they chose strontium to ionize here.
ReplyDeleteZoe Israel
The article says that when hit with a certain wavelength of blue light, strontium emits a glow hundreds of times bigger than the atom's actual size (which is relatively large in the first place), thus making it more visible. Also for the scale, the electrodes in the picture are 2 millimeters apart.
DeletePatrick Munley
This reminds me of a cool IBM project from 2013. They were able to move and manipulate atoms to make the worlds smallest stop motion animation video. The researchers used a scanning tunnel microscope to move carbon monoxide molecules. There moves is so small that it is magnified 100 million. I have always thought the scale of atoms is very mindboggling. To think that we have been able to make it so we can capture an atom with a digital camera. I am curious as to what applications this can have. I know IBM was researching atomic data storage.
ReplyDeleteZane Ruehrwein (3)
IBM Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0
That is an awesome video! Thank you for sharing. Nadlinger admits that another group actually took a picture of an atom in 1989.
DeletePatrick Munley
This experiment made me wonder why they used strontium. Of all the chemicals to pick from they had to have used it for a reason. I found that it is a highly reactive alkaline earth metal, which makes it a good candidate.
ReplyDeleteI feel like many scientific discoveries are either made by accident or using very simply equipment. This makes me wonder whether we look into things too deeply sometimes or choose complicated routes to figure things out. I'm also wondering why they would use strontium?
ReplyDeleteThis is such a "simple" experiment, but so so interesting! (I say simple in quotation marks here because obviously nothing is actually simple in quantum mechanics) I think the most impressive part is the fact that a standard digital camera was used to take the picture! I wonder if using a more specialized/high tech camera would allow them to capture photographs of the protons/neutrons/electrons? The electrons are probably too small, but I wouldn't be surprised if future studies lead to photographs of protons. Either way, super interesting post- thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeletePosted by Nicole Ayres (1)
I hope that they use better cameras in further studies to try to capture protons and neutrons, maybe electrons someday. Definitely a cool thought.
DeletePatrick Munley
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ReplyDeleteThis is quite incredible that the scientists were able to digitally capture a single atom that is visible to the naked eye. I wonder why strontium was used over a larger and potentially easier to see element. I also wonder why they would only use a simple digital camera to observe the atom and not a more sophisticated device to potentially capture subatomic particles. Another interesting thought would be to capture a simple bonding reaction with Strontium and another ion, however isolating a single atom may be limited to only strontium at the moment.
ReplyDeleteDerek Simoncelli (3)
What sort of effect is this going to have on the field of biology, in your opinion?
ReplyDelete-Colby Ells
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ReplyDeleteThis is so cool! Its amazing how we have come so far in technology as to be able to actually visualize an individual atom. I wonder if further research and advancements in the scientific field will eventually lead to the ability to visualize a sing proton, neutron, or even electron.
ReplyDelete- Grace Houghton
This is incredible. Very interesting experiment and crazy that this picture was taken with a normal digital camera. This experiment I'm sure will lead to bigger things in the future.
ReplyDelete- Matt Alexander