Microscopes to View Atoms

Ant sent us linkage to a story about new microscopes that can view atoms . This puts us one step closer to both Quantum mechanics.

IIRC, these have been around...

[PsychoSpunk]

Maybe they're not the scanning tunneling microscopes of days long past, but I remember seeing atoms in 1993 (Carbon atoms I believe).

Do these get us down to hydrogen and helium sized atoms? What's so special, in other words?

Now give me a microscope to view electrons or smaller, and then we'll talk about revolutionary.

Isolated atoms

[Samrobb]

"A quantum computer could use any amount of numbers."

Wow! Really? Any amount at all?

OK, OK, maybe the sarcasm isn't called for... the article was (probably) trying to make the point that data in a quantum computer would not neccesaily be limited by having only two binary states available.

Still, they pass up what I thought was particularly cool: the idea of studying an atom in (relative) isolation... could you use this atom-trap as kind of "clean room" for assembling three-dimensional nano-structures? What about trapping a single anti-particle so it can be studied outside of an environment where it has an effective lifetime of a few billionths of a second? Or just having the chance to see exactly what happens when two atoms interact, instead of having to observe in the aggregate...

Ob. Troll: Man! Can you imagine what a beowulf cluster of these things would be like!

Electron microscopes

[Obfiscator]

Yeah, they have been able to use electron microscopes to view atoms for quite a while. The difference that I can see is that electron microcopes take pictures of the atoms; you don't really see an atom, you see a photograph of it. From what I understand from the article, they are using light to view the atom, so this is much more like a normal microscope that you could use in biology class (it'd be really expensive, though). Another plus is, in an electron microcope, you have to view your sample in a vacuum with a plating of gold on it. Hopefully this microcope could be used to view living organisms, and focus on the chemical processes going on inside unimolecular organisms. I'm guessing this is why this a such a big deal, provided the atom doesn't have to be isolated in order to view it.

Re:Electron microscopes

[Obfiscator]

And how is this like NMR (which it is still called in the scientific world, but not the medicinal world)? NMR works by placing the sample in an external magnetic field and seeing how strong of a field it takes to get the atoms to flip spin. It's not used for imagery at all in the molecular world; just for identification of the chemical make-up and conformation of molecules. It's only used for imagery in the macroscopic world, and the principle is still the same. It just so happens that soft tissue shows up very well because of it's chemical composition. The interaction of the magnetic field with the nuclei is measured; photons have nothing to do with it. Maybe I read your response wrong, but I don't understand where NMR comes into play.

Re:Electron microscopes

[tesserae]

I took it as an analogy: with both MRI and the "microscope" in the article, you're not actually imaging your target directly, but measuring the effects on a probe and using sophisticated computer analysis to back out an image. In each case, the probe is light (the RF field and the laser); in each case, there's a resonant condition at the sample.

Like all analogies, though, it breaks down if you lean on it hard enough.

I think his point is valid, that with this new tool they're not imaging the atom directly. I understood you to be saying that in your first post, myself. The actual situation is quite different; if you've got access to Science Online, check the paper out (it's in the new issue). The Wired story really doesn't do it justice (oh wow, something new!).

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Re:(link) Science Online?

[tesserae]

Well, you found precisely the paper I was referring to (it's the actual paper in question; I didn't know it was available without a subscription - I pay for the right, y'know). "Science Online" is the journal Science's online publication, at sciencemag.org.

Yeah, I guess it is dense... but then, my degree's in physics. I don't know offhand where to suggest you go for a lay explanation; the subject matter is moderately esoteric. You might try the online version of Science News [sciencenews.org] where a more user-friendly version could appear within the next few weeks.

Otherwise, if I find something I'll post it here.

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Re:Isolated atoms

[luke_]

the article was (probably) trying to make the point that data in a quantum computer would not neccesaily be limited by having only two binary states available.

My understanding is that a bit in a quantum computer is still a 0 or 1, but it's both 0 and 1 simultaneously until the wave function collapses and it's forced to become one or the other. It's shocking how bad Wired is about technical details.

Re: anti-particle?

[tesserae]

Antiparticles "explode" when they combine with their matching particle (antielectrons - which are positrons - with electrons, for example), but not when they interact with photons (which are their own antiparticles, BTW). Particle/antiparticle pairs annihilate each other when they meet, and produce a pair of photons with equivalent energy.

You're right, they're working with single atoms, not the subatomic particles. If they could construct an "anti-atom" they could in principle do the same trick with it, but AFAIK only anti-hydrogen has been manufactured so far.

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