Rippling the surface of an electron sea.If it weren't for the unnaturally luminous colors, you might think you were looking at ripples centered around a pair of barely submerged rocks in a pool of water. But this is a new kind of waterscape wa·ter·scape n. A seascape. waterscape 1. a view of a stretch or body of water, as a lake. 2. a drawing or painting of such a view. See also: Representation Noun 1. - one that originates in the realm of atoms, electrons, and quantum physics. Metal atoms readily lose one or more electrons, and these electrons roam freely within the metal crystal to form a pervasive "electron sea." At the surface of a metal crystal, however, the loose electrons usually are confined to a thin layer. Free to move only in two dimensions, these particles also behave like waves. Donald M. Eigler and his co-workers at the IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) Almaden Research Center The IBM Almaden Research Center, located near San Jose, California, is one of IBM's largest research centers, specializing in both basic research in material science and applied research in computer storage, where many refinements and improvements were made in hard disc drive in San Jose, Calif., used a scanning tunneling microscope scanning tunneling microscope, device for studying and imaging individual atoms on the surfaces of materials. The instrument was invented in the early 1980s by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, who were awarded the 1986 Nobel prize in physics for their work. at 4 kelvins to detect tiny variations in the concentration of electrons across the surface of a copper crystal They observed distinctive patterns of electron density corresponding to standing waves, in which the locations of the peaks and troughs of the electron waves remain fixed. In the image shown, a pair of imperfections on the surface of a copper crystal deflects electrons in such a way that the incoming and scattered electron waves overlap to create concentric ripples at each defect. The electron layer responsible for generating this standing-wave pattern is just 0.02 angstrom angstrom (ăng`strəm), abbr. Å, unit of length equal to 10−10 meter (0.0000000001 meter); it is used to measure the wavelengths of visible light and of other forms of electromagnetic radiation, such as ultraviolet deep. Eigler and his colleagues describe their technique for imaging electron waves in the June 10 NATURE. Researchers at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for the IBM Research Division. The center is on three sites, with the main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, 45 miles north of New York City, a building in Hawthorne, New York, and offices in Cambridge, in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., have recently obtained similar images of standing electron waves on a gold surface at room temperature. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion