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Electron Strobe Makes Movies of Atoms
holy_calamity writes "Some grainy black and white movies are receiving rave reviews from scientists. They are taken by a new microscope which, thanks to a 'strobing' electron gun, can image movement at sub-nanometer scales. Until now, only still images that smeared out movement were possible at such scales. The press release notes, 'The researchers first blasted the sample with a pulse of heat. The heated carbon atoms began to vibrate in a random, nonsynchronized fashion. Over time, however, the oscillations of the individual atoms became synchronized as different modes of the material locked in phase, emerging to become a heartbeat-like "drumming."' Further details and a few animations are available at Caltech's site."
Can someone tell me what in these movies is actually an atom? I have no doubt the images are very important, but it'd be nice to know where the important bits are.
So..since we can now see an atom's position in space and time does this do anything to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? I know the principle basically says that when you measure (take pictures of?) the atom that you're moving it in some small unknown way, so what are we really getting a picture of, where it is or where it was? Can we ever actually be more certain, or is Heisenberg's work safe?
graphene for memory has hit 10nm now and may become 3D, which will make a very large factorial change to the scale of memory.
More info here: http://www.physorg.com/news146497821.html
Well mebby. First "moving molecule" movie I saw was in 1991 ... at Woods Hole. Images were taken with a "near-field" light microscope setup, and clearly ( through a glass darkly ) demonstrated a transporter molecule package-in-hand moving along a cytoskeleton filament. Back and forth.
Not atomic resolution - mind - as this article demonstrates(?) , but our class of research scientists was surely awed!