IBM Images a Single Molecule 169
Posted
by
kdawson
from the blow-it-up dept.
from the blow-it-up dept.
chrb writes "New Scientist is reporting that researchers at IBM Zurich have managed to image a single molecule in detail for the first time. In the images of a pentacene molecule, the bonds between the carbon atoms are visible as five linked rings."
Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, TFA says they measured the repulsive force caused by Pauli exclusion principle. That means that their microscope was sensible to filled orbitals, not electrons.
Anyway, you can't really take a picture of an electron bounded into an atom. The uncertainty principle makes it impossible so say exactly where around the atom the electron is. The only way to measure that is releasing the electron from its bound, and then, it says nothing about where it was just before you release it.
I'm inpressed by the chemists who deduced ... (Score:5, Insightful)
the structures of the molecule with such accuracy - without actually seeing it!
Now, that's genius!
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't actually touch the molecules, because weak force cancels out the attraction.
At this scale the meaning of words like "touch" gets a little fuzzy.
Look at the higher intesity at the ends (Score:3, Insightful)
It's interesting to see how the electrons bunch up at the ends. The aromatic delocalization clearly equalizes the energy levels of the bonds, making the entire molecule behave like a conductor, and concentrate charge at the extremes. Just as in a metal, electrons loosely float in the conduction band, it looks they do the same in pentacene, illustrating why graphite is such a good conductor.