IBM Images a Single Molecule 169
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."
Cool, but... (Score:5, Funny)
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They are still working on it.
Re:Cool, but... (Score:5, Funny)
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What in the heck are you talking about? The picture is right there... or is your adblock hiding it somehow?
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I run adblock and noscript, and was able to see the picture this morning.
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I saw it too (with AdBlock) but who knows what sort of weird filters Impy might have set up...
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True. Molecules are awfully small though. Maybe he just has to squint harder.
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Well, the textbook drawings are supposed to represent the underlying physical reality, so it would be disappointing if the drawings and the "photo" didn't resemble one another.
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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.
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The other reason you can't take a picture of an electron is because photons of light are larger than the thing you are trying to image. Also you misquoted the uncertainly principle. It says you CAN find the precise location of an electron, but not its momentum. Or vice-versa find its momentum, but not position.
Re:Cool, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Not exactly. If the electron is bounded, it has some specific momentum probabilities, and some specific position probabilities. You can't find its position with any different certainty unless you remove it from the bounded state.
And that comes from the uncertainty principle. It is not just Dx * Dp >= h/(2 * pi). It is an statement that each state has some specific uncertanty, and that it isn't lower than that relation.
Re:Cool, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong again. The uncertainty principle is very badly named because it applies even if you know *everything* about the electrons and are uncertain about nothing.
The problem is like trying to find the position and frequency of a wave packet. Both position and frequency are kind of macro quantities and it wouldn't make sense to fix them both at the same time. For example a wave with only one frequency must be the same everywhere and hence has no position. Conversely a delta function has an infinitely wide spectrum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_uncertainty_principle#Uncertainty_principle [wikipedia.org]
The photo is of the electric field. (Score:5, Informative)
This photo [gizmodo.com] is better. The article says it is a 20-hour time exposure. The photo was available through a Reddit story [reddit.com] yesterday.
5 Rings? (Score:2, Funny)
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So would the International Olympic Committee [wikipedia.org]!
Next story: (Score:5, Funny)
Next story: IBM is sued by the IOC.
As expected... (Score:5, Funny)
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At least it's only one molecule. Imagine how many pictures they would need until they had several molecules smiling and not blinking.
But imagine the time and processing power involved in the sheer amount of red eye correction needed for multiple complex molecules, to say nothing of entire grams of matter.
What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I caught that too, and I am calling it into question. Especially when combined with the fact that they seem to be casting a shadow. Why/how would a probe detect a shadow? Artist's rendition, perhaps?
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Informative)
You are correct. I get the chance to see AFM readouts at work (you see some really cool shit in a fab), and this is a bit higher resolution that I'm used to seeing, but the "shadow" is something you'll frequently see.
I've never "seen" the substrate from AFM scans at work either.
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Informative)
From the Science article http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/325/5944/1110 (require subscription):
" The asymmetry in the molecular imaging in (D) (showing a "shadow" only on the left side of the molecules) is probably caused by asymmetric adsorption geometry of the CO molecule at the tip apex. "
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Yes, I'm sure you PhD in molecular physics and your extensive experience with AFM allows you to make such propositions. Perhaps you should contact your colleges and let them in on your ground breaking realization~
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:4, Informative)
I think he wants you to check the surety of your conclusions. You stated that you "called into question" the results, and supported that with an observation, but the observation was easily explained by someone with basic knowledge of the thing you were questioning. So, since you knew that you were ignorant of this topic, but went ahead and drew a wrong conclusion, and did in fact question the veracity of the results, the person responded to you with mockery.
Sure, you are allowed to use your eyes and draw conclusions. And when your conclusions are proffered with gusto, and are totally wrong, and based on ignorance, then you are open for a little criticism.
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No, the criticism was spot on, and the only thing asinine was your original post.
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I respectfully disagree.
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Informative)
This image isn't from an electron microscope, it uses AFM (atomic force microscopy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_force_microscope), which actually touches the molecules with its tip. In this case though, they bonded a single carbon monoxoide molecule to the AFM cantilever so that it would only interact with the oxygen atoms on the pentacene molecule. I imagine it didn't image the substrate at all because of that
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Interesting)
This image isn't from an electron microscope, it uses AFM (atomic force microscopy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_force_microscope [wikipedia.org]), which actually touches the molecules with its tip. In this case though, they bonded a single carbon monoxoide molecule to the AFM cantilever so that it would only interact with the oxygen atoms on the pentacene molecule. I imagine it didn't image the substrate at all because of that
It doesn't actually touch the molecules, because weak force cancels out the attraction. That's kind of a key point here because touching it was too destructive to get these images in the first place.
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.
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Informative)
So if the Pantacene is made of Benzene and the Benzene is C6H6, what is that gray flat smooth material that the molecules are sitting on top of in the second picture? Is this simply due to a focus so incredibly tuned that you can't see past the Pentacene molecules? I would expect that to be a field of bumps and crazy random shapes because it has to be made of some molecule or atom, right? How would they finish the slide/table/surface of that so accurately? I'm used to seeing that when you see bacteria or viruses with an electron microscope, what is in effect here that we don't see an alien landscape back-dropping these molecules? I'm not calling into question the authenticity of the image, just curious if anyone knows.
From the paper: "In this work, we present atomically resolved AFM measurements of pentacene both on a Cu(111) substrate and on a NaCl insulating film. For atomic resolution with the AFM, it is necessary to operate in the short-range regime of forces, where chemical interactions give substantial contributions."
This was a scanning probe microscope, and the tip of the probe was a single carbon monoxide atom. Apparently the CO didn't interact with the Cu or NaCl in such a way that it saw contrast from atom to atom, but it had a finer interaction with the atoms in the pentacene.
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to reply to myself, but here's the most important reason for the lack of substrate heterogeneity in the image:
"The AFM images (Fig. 1, C and D) were recorded in constant-height mode; that is, the tip was scanned without z feedback parallel to the surface while the frequency shift {Delta}f was being recorded (16). In this and all of the following measurements, the tip height z is always given with respect to the STM set point over the substrate."
In school, when I ran AFM I allow feedback from the tip to adjust the height of the probe so that it maintains contact with the thing I'm imaging, regardless of topography. Here, they had a very smooth substrate and then set the height of their probe to a fixed position above it.
Re:What Material Is the Pantacene Sitting On? (Score:5, Informative)
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This was a scanning probe microscope, and the tip of the probe was a single carbon monoxide atom.
Er, no. It may have been a single carbon monoxide molecule, however.
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Clearly this is a fraud perpretrated by a fanatical intro to chemistry teacher.
Seriously though, maybe they cleaned up the background noise or maybe the tip (which they modified with carbon monoxide so it was "tuned") was extremely selective in how it responded to the substrate material.
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Scrith.
5 linked rings (Score:5, Funny)
4 calling birds
3 french hens
2 turtle doves
and a partridge in a pair tree?
Re:5 linked rings (Score:5, Funny)
5 linked rings
4 carbon bonds
3 electrons
2 tiny dots
and a grainy image on my PC...
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(Much like the 2003 Hulk movie)
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Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Novelty is "the quality of being new". You fail to see the novelty of doing something for the first time?
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It's a basic tenant of cosmology that the universe looks pretty much the same in all directions. If there really was a big empty spot that would be a very interesting finding.
The location of the Hubble deep field was chosen because of the lack of nearby, bright objects. There are many objects in the HDF that are bright enough to be accessible to professional optical telescopes, quite a few that are within reach of some of the larger amateur telescopes and radio surveys had revealed all kinds of stuff, pre
link to journal abstract (Score:5, Informative)
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And if anyone wants to see more images from the IBM team, they have a flickr photostream. [flickr.com] It's really impressive.
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The pic, here [flickr.com], with the foil on the microscope made me smile. The whole damn thing is cool but that there is foil too I felt like if I just could get a glimpse of some duct tape somewhere we could even show this to non-geeks and make them smile too.
Polymers are molecules too (Score:3, Informative)
Single strands of synthetic polymers and DNA have been imageable for many years. I imagine many of us on slashdot have personally acquired images of these single molecules before.
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Don't forget, a good diamond is basically one big carbon molecule. A diamond's not only imageable, but you can feel/hold/interact with it.
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The images are stunning and I congratulate IBM for their efforts.
Exactly (Score:2)
Theory now science? (Score:2)
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We've been observing molecules in lots of ways for a long time. This is just the first time we've made a certain kind of picture.
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Theory is not fact until it has been proven by science. Science, where something can be observed, repeated and gives the same/similar outcome every time. That's what I understand theory and science as.
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Science never proves anything. It only gives better and better probability that a particular theory accurately reflects reality. Or at least can predict observations.
Measuring the distribution of forces across a molecule with an atomic force microscope is certainly a valuable observation and I'm sure the technique will help refine and test theories of molecular arrangement, but it isn't "proof" and it doesn't suddenly make anything "true."
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A hypothesis becomes a theory when some one comes up with a tested that could prove it false.
This is why you need a falsifiable test to be considered a scientific theory* to begin with.
By that, I mean a test that could show the hypothesis is false.
So my hypothesis may be, all object fall at the same rate.
My first falsifiable test might be to go to the top of Piza, and drop two objects with different mass. An observer at the bottom jots down which hit the ground first.
Then the test can be refined. For examp
One ring to rule all, but.... (Score:2)
What do you do with 5 rings chained together?
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Sauron: When I said that I wanted all of the rings to be linked to mine, this wasn't what I had in mind...
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Get sued by the Olympic committee~
What the hell... (Score:2)
The picture is marked in units of HERTZ and AMPS?
Re:What the hell... (Score:4, Informative)
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...and what in God's name are negative hertz supposed to represent?
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Do a Fourier transform of a time signal. You get positive and negative frequencies.
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Symmetrical, IIRC... but I don't think that has much to do with this. Geekoid's thinking is more along my line of reasoning, esp. after some of the explanations people have given of how AFM scanning works.
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Hermitian symmetric, for a real-valued input, which means anti-symmetric for a 1D real-valued input. For a complex-valued input, the negative frequencies are not simply related to the positive.
Not sure what Geekoid said, but I suspect the measurement is relative to a reference frequency, which is why there are negatives.
There are plenty of imaging modalities where it would be valid to label an axis in frequency units, with negatives though. Any form of interferometry or synthetic aperture radar technique
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Not sure what Geekoid said, but I suspect the measurement is relative to a reference frequency, which is why there are negatives.
This, and yeah:
Maybe it's based on a base line? so, for examples, if your baseling was 10Hz, -1Hz would be 9.
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I don't know; however that won't keep me from speculating...
Maybe it's based on a base line? so, for examples, if your baseling was 10Hz, -1Hz would be 9.
Now that doesn't seem to make sens at the number sI am using, but when dealing with the number you would be using to do this, it makes more sens the a 8 decimal place number. .00001 Hz.
Also, it my be a standard defined unit, not 1 Hz.
So a uit might by in
or 12345423 Hz.
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Thanks. Hmm, yeah, I suppose your average Joe wouldn't have the slightest bit of interest in knowing those details, but "News for Nerds" certainly would be expected to give more technical specifics than news targeted to your average Joe...
Also, they could'a used a clearer font or something. That Å looks just like a regular uppercase A. (Of course, it's not much better in this font...)
misleading summary and article (Score:2)
Try harder (Score:2)
Those are a series of nanotubes, not a molecule on jmtour.com
I saw no picture of a single molecule on your google link, either.
For some reason... (Score:3, Funny)
Why do I have the sudden urge to play Arkanoid?
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:I'm inpressed by the chemists who deduced ... (Score:5, Informative)
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I once had a dream where a snake bit me on the ass and held on, so I bit its tail and held on right back.
No great insights into the physical world resulted. :(
Wow, this is amazing (Score:2)
Watson and Crick wouldn't have had that much trouble with DNA if they had these tools... will the IBM scientists be able to do this for more complex molecules? As a complete layman in Chemistry, I think I recall that there are lots of work that involve the spatial geometry of molecules.
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Yes, such as Folding at Home.
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I think I recall that there are lots of work that involve the spatial geometry of molecules.
Yes. Elementary chemistry is pretty much just what is stuck to what, but once you get into organic chemistry, spatial geometry is pretty much half the class.
Simply Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Greg
Yes, I do have a life outside the lab, but maybe not as much of one as I once thought.
Go IBM! (Score:2)
IBM has their faults, but it's good to see a company doing cutting edge RnD and producing results.
Heisenburg Uncertainy Principle? (Score:2)
I am not a nuclear physicist so maybe my question is understandable...
I thought that when you get to the molecular level The uncertainty principle would start to take effect. Very large molecules like DNA might be observable but what about smaller molecules? At what size scale would the uncertainty principle make observation impossible?
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The Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies at the quantum level and its effect becomes more pronounced as the sizes of the objects and systems decrease. However, this alone imposes no limit on observability.
Put simply, the principle states that the more precisely you know the position of a particle the less precisely you can know its momentum (and therefore velocity). At the quantum level the observation necessarily perturbs the system being observed.
What's it good for? (Score:2)
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IBM plans to sell it to the Census bureau as a new type of Hollerith card.
But... (Score:3, Funny)
Can it be used to create biodiesel?
In other news, ... (Score:2)
In other news, the International Olympic Committee has filed a trademark infringement suit against IBM and God, showing that pentacine resembles the trademarked "interlocking five ring [fredlaw.com]" design of the Olympic Games.
Compare those pics with 45nm chip design. (Score:3, Interesting)
45nm is 450 angstrom, so you can see by the 20 angstrom ruler in one of the pictures that chip design is getting pretty small. In fact, you can see the atoms lined up in the traces of chips!
http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/afm-bpm-e-beam.jpg
But what are the "STICKS" connecting the BALLS? (Score:4, Interesting)
We take this model for granted. It's one thing for a handy, convenient model to hold Balls in place with sticks and the you connect your large blue Oxygen balls to the tiny Red hydrogen balls and call it a model.
It's quite another that it's the actual, physical representation of it.
We look at atoms and imagine electron shells -- that's really a domain that electrons spend their time in.
However, physicists currently have this model of particles being particles. Now if a solid, frozen substance under the head of a pin, however, is detecting the structures of "most common region of covalent bonding" as actual "stick like" structures -- when in all rights, the interference of the probe should be pushing the electron around it -- then maybe we need to rethink this concept of particles.
>> My own belief, and I'm likely to get slammed for this on Slashdot by folks who think about physics and chemistry all day -- is that EVERYTHING is a field. Particles are fields with pinpoint connections to other dimensions and that exhibit mass. But what you would expect, from a field, touching a field, is that the "domains" of the electron bonding, would appear solid.
If you really think about it, the electron and proton in these pictures are so small, that the distance from the electron is as far from the proton vs. its size, that it would be like a period on this sentence on a football field.
THAT any of these molecules is solid, means that the potential fields where the electron COULD BE, have some disruption on space, and that the patterns of force of the probe, interfere with the patterns of force on the studied atom.
If Atoms were really very tiny particles, we would SOMETIMES see a structure and sometimes not -- because the probe's electron and the sampled atom's electron would not be occupying the same location most of the time.
>> It's a bit like asking the basic question: Why are things opaque and why are they solid? Fields themselves are the only things that could be stopping the probe. And if physics recognizes the "strong and weak force" -- are those really propagated by particles, or is it a disturbance in space itself. I'm one of the anachronisms who still believes in the aether, I suppose -- think of Dark Matter, as the New Aether.
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However, physicists currently have this model of particles being particles. Now if a solid, frozen substance under the head of a pin, however, is detecting the structures of "most common region of covalent bonding" as actual "stick like" structures -- when in all rights, the interference of the probe should be pushing the electron around it -- then maybe we need to rethink this concept of particles.
My own belief, and I'm likely to get slammed for this on Slashdot by folks who think about physics and chemist
Single Molecule (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Molecules are made of atoms, right? (Score:5, Informative)
Good job reading the article.
FTA:
Thanks to specialised microscopes, we have long been able to see the beauty of single atoms. But strange though it might seem, imaging larger molecules at the same level of detail has not been possible â" atoms are robust enough to withstand existing tools, but the structures of molecules are not. Now researchers at IBM have come up with a way to do it.
emphasis mine.
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Unless you refer to the lattice under the molecule. They don't float.