Its a Small World After All-- guide you to see atoms

by Prof J.Y. Dai (AP)

To see a single atom has been a dream a hundred years ago, but this dream was
realized until the discovery of electron microscope and scanning tunneling
microscope in 1980s.

Optical (light) microscopes have been around for many years, but the main limit is
the wavelength of light. In general, the resolution of an optical microscope is close
to the wavelength, so with visible light optical microscope, to reach 300 nm
resolution is already very difficult.

With the invention of the electron microscope in 1931, great success has been
achieved by the end of last century to make the transmission electron microscope
(TEM) good enough to see atoms in crystals. The particle-wave duality of an
electrons makes the electron microscope similar to an optical microscope in
principle but with a wavelength of a few Picometers.

Another amazing technique is scanning tunneling microscope (STM) which

measures changes in electrical current between the probe tip and the atoms on a
sample surface. When you run your finger over a surface, say paper or carpet, you
can tell how smooth or rough it is. A scanning probe microscope works in a similar
mechanical way, but using a nanoscale finger. With this technique, not only could
atoms be seen, it was found that the tips of the microscopes could be used to handle
individual atoms and move them around.

Similar to the STM, an atomic force microscope (AFM) has a very fine tip,
sometimes only an atom wide, which is dragged across a sample surface. The tip
rises over atoms and falls into the spaces between. A computer uses the information
to produce 3D images of atoms. The recent development of the AFM technique
made it able to see a single atom on a crystal surface.

More seriously, these new tools meant that it was possible to start working on one
of the dreams of some nanotechnologists the building of nanoscale objects atom
by atom.