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28 giu 2021 · Particle Physics. Behold the highest-resolution image of atoms ever taken. To create it, Cornell University researchers captured a sample from a crystal in three dimensions and magnified it 100...
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While collecting images of the molecular structure of an antiseptic compound called 8-hydroxyquinoline, nanoscientist Xiaohui Qiu saw something that he didn’t expect.
His team was using a method called atomic force microscopy, dragging an ultrasharp probe across the surface of a sample to reveal its topography at subnanometre resolution. The technique had previously revealed single molecules, complex mixtures and even chemical reactions in extraordinary detail. But Qiu’s image of 8-hydroxyquinoline contained something peculiar: connecting silhouettes of the organic molecule’s two rings were fine tendrils of contrast in regions where hydrogen bonds should form1. Nobody had ever captured a picture of these electronic interactions before. Qiu’s image seemed destined to become iconic.
“I was seduced by the image,” says Mervyn Miles, a physicist at the University of Bristol, UK, who visited Qiu’s laboratory at the Chinese National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in Beijing in September 2013, at the same time as the images were published online in Science. He recalls feeling both amazement at the finding and uncertainty that atomic force microscopy could really capture such a level of molecular detail. “You go, ‘Oh, I’ll think about that later’,” Miles says. More than four years on, researchers’ awe has turned to scepticism. And there lies the challenge of using atomic force microscopy to capture images at subnanometre resolution.
The method’s sensitivity to the electron density that surrounds atoms and exists between them, including the bonds that hold them together as molecules, enables researchers to probe chemistry’s fundamental secrets. “If I have just a single molecule of something, I can — in principle, at least — record the structure of that,” says Peter Liljeroth, a physicist at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. “There is no other experimental technique currently able to do this.”
But this sensitivity can also produce artefacts in images, which means that scientists must take extreme care to show that what they see represents a real structure. And Liljeroth says that the subnanometre techniques he uses currently are “too complicated and too time consuming” to be adopted widely. He and other researchers are therefore hopeful that automation and machine-learning algorithms will help to simplify the technique. “This, I see like an engineering problem,” Liljeroth says. “This can be done.”
Technology to watch
•Imaging modes of atomic force microscopy for application in molecular and cell biology
•Studying biological membranes with extended range high-speed atomic force microscopy
- Andy Extance
- 2018
1 giu 2021 · Physics. This is the most detailed look at individual atoms ever captured. By Krista Charles. 1 June 2021. A world-record-breaking close-up of atoms in a crystal. Cornell. The highest-resolution...
- Krista Charles
26 mag 2021 · Jaron Schneider. In 2018, Cornell researchers built a high-powered detector that set a world record for the highest resolution state of the art electron microscope which, at the time, tripled the...
28 mag 2021 · In 2018, using ptychography and sophisticated algorithms, a Cornell University research team set a record with an incredible photo of atoms. With improved detection and algorithms, the team is back with another record-setting image, and it's the highest-resolution photo of atoms ever captured.
- Jeremy Gray
30 giu 2021 · Cornell University. Physicists just put Apple's latest iPhone to shame, taking the most detailed image of atoms to date with a device that magnifies images 100 million times, Scientific American reports. The researchers, who set the record for the highest resolution microscope in 2018, outdid themselves with a study published last month.
28 mar 2022 · Analytical Chemistry. March 28, 2022. Visualizing the invisible: A new model to aid interpretation of atomic resolution molecular images. by University of Tokyo. The familiar periodic table of...
