Quote of the Day
By using an electron beam, or e-beam, to remove and deposit the atoms, the ORNL scientists could accomplish a direct writing procedure at the atomic level.
“The process is remarkably intuitive,” said ORNL’s Andrew Lupini, STEM group leader and a member of the research team. “STEMs work by transmitting a high-energy e-beam through a material. The e-beam is focused to a point smaller than the distance between atoms and scans across the material to create an image with atomic resolution. However, STEMs are notorious for damaging the very materials they are imaging.”
The scientists realized they could exploit this destructive “bug” and instead use it as a constructive feature and create holes on purpose. Then, they can put whatever atom they want in that hole, exactly where they made the defect. By purposely damaging the material, they create a new material with different and useful properties.
“We’re exploring methods to create these defects on demand so we can place them where we want to,” Jesse said. “Since STEMs have atomic-scale imaging capabilities, and we work with very thin materials that are only a few atoms in thickness, we can see every atom. So, we are manipulating matter at the atomic scale in real time. That’s the goal, and we are actually achieving it.”
To demonstrate the method, the researchers moved an e-beam back and forth over a graphene lattice, creating minuscule holes. They inserted tin atoms into those holes and achieved a continuous, atom-by-atom, direct writing process, thereby populating the exact same places where the carbon atom had been with tin atoms.
“We believe that atomic-scale synthesis processes could become a matter of routine using relatively simple strategies. When coupled with automated beam control and AI-driven analysis and discovery, the synthescope concept offers a window into atomic synthesis processes and a unique approach to atomic-scale manufacturing,” Jesse said.
Dawn M Levy
September 24, 2024
‘Writing’ with atoms could transform materials fabrication for quantum devices
They can create new materials atom by atom. I can’t imagine the limits to such a tool. What sort of “alloys” could be made? Could there be energy storage devices like batteries and capacitors far beyond the capacities of our current devices? What about explosive compounds? Imagine drones the size of a mosquito carrying a super toxin or explosives payload to someone’s middle ear or up a nostril. Or nanobots roaming the bloodstream to clear an infection, clogged blood vessels, or cancer.
Living in the future is wild.
Very cool, but scaling up up to things of meaningful size might be a challenge.
a 1/10 gram of something made mostly of carbon would still have ~5×10^21 atoms. That’s going to take a while.
But for some things, like building electronics, it might be awesome.
OTOH, how many technologies are “groundbreaking” and “game-changing” that never go anywhere?
Cool idea. But in the vein of Rolf’s comment.
1 mol. of a given atom is basically it’s atomic # in grams.
The atomic # of iron is 26. So, 26 grams of pure iron has 6.023×10 to the 23 power of iron atoms.
That’s a lot of connections to make.
But what I truly see as the problem is purity. Making sure the atom in your beam area is the exact one you want is a monumental problem.
That’s why the gold and silver you buy is 5-9’s fine. 99.999% purity. (Maybe? who’s truly testing? It’s all done by weight and size.)
For their machine to work their going to have some work to do getting to 100%, 100% of the time.
To say nothing of the refining process needed to get there. Separating molecules into atoms and keeping them that way is something mining engineers and chemists have been working on for a thousand years or better.
Always room for improvement, and I’m sure we have. But to that extent? Color me dubious.
I see this as groundbreaking in its potential. Building something useful with it will take some time.
One problem is scalability, as has been noted. Building something atom by atom is super cool, but how long will it take to build something we can see?
Creation of totally new materials, atom by atom, as Joe suggests, is another — and perhaps that CAN be done at scale. We might then have unimagined new compounds. An alloy of iron and nitrogen? What are the actual physical properties of xenonite? Maybe we’ll find out!
There may also be a problem with the technique, that some atoms can be precisely placed while others cannot… or that some can be placed in some contexts but not others. I’m confident that refinement of the technique will work that out.
At this point, we’re less likely to see amazing (and ultra-scary) microscopic machines… and more likely to see atomic-level animation etc.
When atomic-level 3D printing is available cheaply in a desktop model, things will truly get interesting… and scary!
It’s fascinating how they’ve managed to turn what was once a destructive limitation into a precise construction tool. The idea of intentionally creating defects at the atomic level and then filling them with specific atoms feels like the foundation of a whole new category of materials science. Makes you wonder how long before this shifts from lab demos into real-world applications like computing or energy storage.
Fantastic Voyage (1966)