February 15, 2005

Fluffy to Flat

High geekdom here... Some researchers in Spain have directly observed a layer of Lead atoms on a Silicon substrate change their state as a function of temperature. Microscopy has been able to observe single atoms for a decade or two but it has always been a static view. This website has a video. Here are two frames -- they did digital processing but the individual bumps you see are individual Lead atoms.
lead-135K.jpg
Don't move a muscle. Lead atoms on a silicon surface go from a flat arrangement at 135 Kelvin (top) to a corrugated structure at 43 Kelvin. The microscope captured the phase transition by continuously imaging the same set of atoms over the entire temperature range. (See video.)
Posted by DaveH at February 15, 2005 8:06 PM
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