Guy at Oxford University takes a picture of a single Strontium atom (ok, ion...) caught in an ion trap: https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/...s-science-photography-competitions-top-prize/
General / Off-Topic Picture of a single Atom
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Guy at Oxford University takes a picture of a single Strontium atom (ok, ion...) caught in an ion trap: https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/...s-science-photography-competitions-top-prize/
Deleted member 110222
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Is the atom the tiny little dot in the centre?
Relevance to post - Its a 'Single' Acorn Atom
The Acorn Atom is where the seeds of Elite where created.
Because of this post I found this
https://atom.io/
Its interesting how the human brain works..
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I suppose we're seeing the outer cloud of electrons....
Soon we shall reach the limit of engraving of the microprocessor with 1 atom
What you actually see is a finely tuned flourescense. The atom is illuminated by a (violet) laser, which is energizing the outer shell electron(s). When they relax to their ground state, they emit violet light themselves. Very faint, but apparently just visible with the naked eye, and recordable by a camera in a long time exposure.
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And since this is a digital image, what you actually get is the pixel (the pixels?) that are triggered by the light emitted form this single atom, modified by the Airy disc of the lens.
Actually - that would make a great tool to determine the actual resolution of a lens-sensor combination....
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This.
Unless understanding has changed since I studied you cannot actually perceive single atoms regardless of magnification ability.
Doesn't stop that photo being damn awesome though.
Was it smiling?
what these tiny tiny tiny lickle fings are what Kim fingy has been using to make weapons - not so worried now DEN!
I'm in denial.....
Well you do support Ipswich....
Great explanation! o7!
Sorry but this is utter rubbish no matter how it is spun. Nothing can see an atom and definitely not a normal camera.
There is absolutely no evidence that there is a single atom because nothing can detect a single atom, how do they know there are not two of them?
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Not with visible light, which has a wavelength multiple order of magnitude larger than atoms, but other methods can image single atoms.
The blue point of light is emitted by a single atom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope
Ok that is interesting. I find the idea that is possible to identify a single atom very hard to believe / verify but it is interesting.
Not saying you are telling me lies... just that I didn't know that microscopes could see atoms.
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Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-emission_microscopy . The German page has a few more pictures how that beast actually looks like - and how old that one is. Over here, such a tube is (or at least was) standard equipment for a high shool (Gymnasium) physics lab. It'll only show the structure of a crystal (i.e. the tip of the electrode) at atomic (or close to) resolution.
"Real" atomic resolution came up with the various types of essentially mechanical raster microscopy - scanning probe microscopy. Rather like reading braille - you run a tip over a surface and detect the "roughness" (which might be expressed as electrical current as in the raster tunnel microscope or, later on, even as mechanical force in the raster force microscope). I can remember this picture going around the world when I was a student: https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV1003.html
Of course, "see" is a bit far fetched here, as you're not dealing with any form of light. Any "light" that could work on this kind of scale would basically destroy the stuff it was sent to illuminate. As e.g. in the XFEL facility, which works with X-rays to probe molecular structures.