4 ms·

yeah, that's a picture of the implied surface of the electron cloud surrounding an atom's nucleus

• justifier 11y ago
  An ordinary microscope, which employs optical lenses, could view objects smaller than the wavelength of light. An electron microscope could view smaller things with greater clarity than an optical microscope, but still could not clearly view individual atoms. So Binnig and Rohrer decided to build their own instrument – something new that would be capable of seeing and manipulating atoms at the nanoscale level. To do that, they began experimenting with tunneling, a quantum phenomenon in which atoms escape the surface of a solid to form a kind of cloud that hovers above the surface; when another surface approaches, its atomic cloud overlaps and an atomic exchange occurs. By maneuvering a sharp metal conducting tip over the surface of a sample at an extremely small distance, Binnig and Rohrer found that the amount of electrical current flowing between the tip and the surface could be measured. Variations in this current could provide information about the inner structure and the height-relief of the surface. And from this information, one could build a three-dimensional atomic-scale map of the sample’s surface. http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/microscope/ http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/microsc...