IBM uses carbon atoms to create world’s smallest movie

BBC : Researchers at IBM invented the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), for which they won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. Advances in the technology, which allows for the imaging and manipulation of individual atoms, are being applied to data storage. The microscope moves an electrically charged, very small-tipped needle over a surface and maps the location of atoms when the tip is close enough that the charge tunnels to the atom. By moving the tip even closer to the atom, the microscope can be used to push the atom to a new location. To demonstrate the capabilities that the technology has achieved, a team led by Andreas Heinrich of IBM Research in Almaden, California, worked 18-hour days for two weeks to create a short, stop-motion movie. Called A Boy and His Atom , the 242-frame, 90-second-long video shows a stick figure playing with a ball. The series of still images is created from dozens of carbon atoms arranged on a sheet of copper, to which the carbon atoms bond. Between frames, the researchers use an STM to carefully move the atoms around, which then rebond to the copper sheet and are imaged in their new positions. Heinrich admits that the movie isn’t about any particular breakthrough, but is more about getting people interested and excited about technology.