IBM Measures Force Required To Move Atoms 128
Tjeerd writes "IBM scientists, in collaboration with the University of Regensburg in Germany, are the first ever to measure the force it takes to move individual atoms on a surface. This fundamental measurement provides important information for designing future atomic-scale devices: computer chips, miniaturized storage devices, and more." I've attached a video if you are interested.
That's not their first try at atomic engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:That's not their first try at atomic engineerin (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, yes, they did move atoms with precision in 1989 (from TFA), but moving things and measuring the force required are two different things. If you know the exact forces you can automate the process much more effectively as no manual checking is needed.
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Re:That's not their first try at atomic engineerin (Score:5, Funny)
To be perfectly fair to other companies, IBM has a very simple logo. It is also black and white. Now that we can finally see atoms in color [slashdot.org], other companies can get in on that action.
If you could make circuits like that, it would be really interesting, although useless. For instance, I can imagine an Air where the CPU (at the atomic level) looked like the Apple logo tesselated again and again.
Bravo for the video... (Score:2)
this looked like. I was pretty frustrated until I came back
to
freakin' video.
So, bravo for including that video. It really added value. Thanks.
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Should read (Score:4, Interesting)
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Everyone in the US already does it. Pounds are technically a unit of force, but we normalize away the gravitational pull of the earth in the equation so we can pretend pounds are equivalent to kilograms.
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If you chain two atoms (both touching the surface), how does the force change? Three? More?
It would be really interesting to see if applying force in "the right spot" could make moving things around much easier.....think "Moving Men" (http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/Movingmen.html/ [asseenontv.com] but at an atomic scale.
Layne
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I hope this isnt Digg (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a really interesting part of surface science, which in itself is more important than people give it credit for.
The force to move that atom meassured _directly_ is something new, that will also allow more educated guess on the dynamics of self-assembling layers.
To illustrate a point: All those nice pictures like shoing "IBM" in atoms are usually done on a nice surface (Pt-111), and cooled down to helium temperatures. At room temperatures, those atoms just around on a timescale faster than you can meassure a picture.
This is also (or even more) the case when creating thin layers on a substrate, where there are lots of different ways for layers to grow (some substrate material combination first grow "islands", others form a single layer, and islands later, others grow layer by layer). This is hard to detect in situ (a LEED picture only shows that much...). So anything we know about those forces helps understanding this behaviour.
And yeah, about practical applications: Everything from solar cells (organic ones have _very thin_ layers in their CIGGSE sandwitch) to lithography (dielectric mirrors for EUV-lithography is a hot topic)
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What's wrong with stupid jokes, so long as they're funny?
Q: How many IBM engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: (insert punch line here)
Re:I hope this isnt Digg (Score:5, Funny)
A: (this line intentionally left blank)
Subscribe to IBM Gold Class Hardware Maintenance for those oddly insoluble problems!
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Re:I hope this isnt Digg (Score:4, Funny)
A: Just one. The real question is how many patent attorneys got involved! =)
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A: Just one. But it takes a team of PhDs to measure the forces involved.
A step forward (Score:1)
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When you have a machine that can construct anything out of atoms or even molecules (perhaps nanometer sized machines doing the constructing, in the scale of billions of the little things), then physical property will in fact be equal to intellectual property.
In short, the only thing that will have monetary value will be land. The "IP" wars being waged today are setting the stage for the future wars between the "have nots" and the "we have but don't want anyo
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BTM
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And I thought the FBI put you in prison for draft evasion, when did you get out? And how's Ethel doing?
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"Will work for electrons."
On a surface? (Score:1)
Wouldn't that surface be made of, ummmm, atoms?
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people patents projects (Score:5, Insightful)
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Patents are not 'evil' Yes some are abusive, and yes process patents and software patents have borked the system, but for stuff like this I am glad we have a patent system.
If IBM tried to keep this a trade secrets. they might have gotten 5 years of production, if they where extremely good at keeping secrets.
OTOH, if everything was trade secrets I suspect industrial espionage would be a much larger problem.
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It's even worse than that. Did you see what "people patents projects" was the object of? "Made in IBM labs". People! Made in IBM labs!
I also kind of liked the IBM logo in the beginning and end that faded to black to the sound of electrical discharge.
--Rob
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Although at the same time IBM has done a lot to increase the research and knowledge in the whole nano-tech field.
with, so it isn't that bad, they deserve to profit off of all the money they are spending.
It would have made my change in position much more clear.
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If we could you could conceivably unfry an egg, which would violate all three laws of thermodynamics.
I think we'll probably break the lightspeed barrier first. That will likely happen right after Satan wins his first snowball fight, if Einstein was right.
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Haven't done anything large-scale, though.
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Layne
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Of course that one atom is one out of around 10^24 atoms per cc.
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However, PLANTS convert energy to matter. I forgot about plants. But we didn't invent those, not yet anway.
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There is one element, and it is the least energy state. I think it's lead, but I might be mis-remembering. Anyway, elements heavier than this mystery element break apart to release energy. Elements lighter fuse together to release energy. Fission (breaking) is heavy stuff like Uranium, Fusion (combining) is light stuff like Hydrogen.
However, PLANTS convert energy to matter.
I don't wanna go raining on your par
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Actually, the energy stored in the chemical bonds is also measurable as mass, according to the formula E=m*c^2. The change in mass when you break the atomic bonds and allow the resulting heat to conduct/radiate away is minuscule, but present.
he who can move atoms can move the universe! (Score:2)
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Anyway, he'd never know whether he was moving the universe, or just himself.
Easy problem (Score:5, Funny)
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UAC (Score:1)
I am still waiting for the Elementary Phase Deconstructor!
SlashTube (Score:3, Funny)
Heisenberg will be rolling in his grave... (Score:2)
IBM is blowing smoke up our five-hole.
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Planks constant is on the order of 10^-34 J*s.
Basically, the uncertainty is dominated by the size of the atom.
Intel Announcement (Score:2)
Re:too much money for too little (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:too much money for too little (Score:4, Funny)
1. Move individual atoms to make company logo
2. Determine the force required to move those atoms
3. ???
4. Profit!
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You've never dealt with Wall Street, have you? Look into "arbitrage". Hell, look into all of their business practices.
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Very few products make a profit the day they come out. For the most part the first month or so (on average) is just spent remaking the production costs, and then everything past that is
Re:too much money for too little (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the Hubble bring profit? No. Do earth based telescopes bring anyone profit? No. Should they? Not as a primary function. There are more important things in life than money and profits!
There was a beautiful sunrise this morning. Although nobody made any money off of it, I greatly profited by the experience. Mankind greatly profits by knowing how much force is required to move an atom, whether IBM makes any money from the exersize or not.
Go back to the bank to worship your little green god and stop trolling us nerds.
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The Hubble not making profit is like saying that people don't pay taxes. Where do you think your money goes? NASA needs projects like the Hubble to keep getting its government checks. You're sunrise is a bad analogy, since no one created, except maybe a higher power if you believe in one.
Secondly, I assume IBM has a bunch of ideas about how they could make money off of this. IBM is a company, and being a company it must turn a profit, otherwise it wont be a company for
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Eggs and rabbits are alive unless they're dead, that's where the similarity ends. Taxes are money and so are profits, that's where the similarity ends.
The sunrise isn't an analogy. I did indeed profit from it, and it doesn't matter whether or not the sunrise was created. It was there, it had value, it was priceless and costless. If it wasn't costless, if I had to pay money to construct it,
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Saying eggs are alive is like saying your tupperware container is alive just because you put a mouse and some nuts in it.
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(/Hopes no one in congress notices this joke.)
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Kudos to Branson, Carmak, IBM's leaders, etc.
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they take pictures.
Go back to your computer and think up something that you dont want to make profit from.......
And then I'll steal it, make millions, and steal your girlfriend
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I find that people scream the loudest when they are shown they are wrong.
Pow!
still gonna steal your girlfriend. even if she is fat
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In fairness, there is that HD channel that just shows sunrise in various locations every morning. Talk about starved for content...
-l
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Uncyclopedia [uncyclopedia.org] bills itself as "the content-free encyclopedia". Excerpt from today's front page...
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But Joe Schmoe, he needs to believe that if he gets a college education, he can make the big buc
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How about profiting as a secondary function?
In the case of IBM's atom movement, it may indeed bring profit some day. But as with telescopes, profit is not its primary purpose. Gaining knowledge is its primary purpose.
Who the fuck modded you 5;insightful?
Certainly not bankers and stockbrokers! I'd say most likely some nerds who know the value of knowledge, and know that money is not the answer to everything. It's simply a tool t
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Re:too much money for too little (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:too much money for too little (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to teleport something, you have to take the source material apart, atom by atom and rebuild it elsewhere, atom by atom. Can we do that? No, because we don't know how to tear something apart atom by atom, identify the atoms we've just torn off the source, transmit the x,y,z coordinates along with the atom type and put the same kind of atom at the translated x,y,z coordinates yet. We're on the way though.
Initially, it'll be inanimate objects. UPS is currently capitalized at $75 Billion so there's a little bit of money to be made moving stuff around. Of course, why move stuff instead of just fab as needed? Once you've torn something apart, you know what you need to make as many copies as you want.
If we ever get to the point where we can disassemble a person and rebuild people quickly enough then you're talking several orders of magnitude of value more. Take snapshots of yourself when you're especially healthy and use those as restore points for yourself. Add some patching software that merges your experiences which are stored as atom arrangements in your brain since your last snapshot and you have immortality. How much is that worth? Don't like your nose? There'll be body shops that use the photoshop equivalent to touch up your features. How much is that worth? Want a bigger cock? Not a problem. Whatever you can imagine, and then some could be possible.
Will any of the above ever happen? Who knows? What we do know is it won't happen if we aren't willing to pay to answer the 'little' questions. Like how much force is needed to move an atom.
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Dang you! You just out-moded my transporter invention! Not even invented yet, and I'm already out of business. Maybe I can sue you in some European Anti-Trust court...?
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I agree completely! (Score:3, Funny)
Why just the other day I told my wife not to have sex with me because it's a complete waste of time and energy, which could be better spent packing coins into little rolls to chan
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The Integrated Circuit.
So I imagine... we should have just gave up when it was in theory labs "too small, not practical, too expensive to produce" and continued with the discreet electronics approach right?
And we'd all be typing on 80 pound computers that wouldn't run DOS6.
Sweet. Good idea!
You're so smart!
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The industrial revolution started before steam power was effectively harnessed.
Loads of mills next to canals in the town where I live are a testament to this.