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."

Not having an experience with this field....

[carterhawk001]

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.

Heisenberg?

[pub_tib]

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?

Re:Very import research

[replicant108]

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 [physorg.com]

old news

[noshellswill]

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!