Atomic pen achieves invisible victory

Putting the world's tiniest book to shame -- not to mention the Torah-inscribed grain of rice -- a research team at Osaka University has "written" the letters "Si" using an atomic pen that interchanges silicon and tin atoms, enabling those who have the time, resources, and patience to manipulate said atoms one by one. The results are a diminutive 2 x 2 nm (or 40,000 times smaller than a strand of hair) which took about an hour and a half to complete. The previous best was a laughably large 0.07 x 0.10 mm tome hailing from SFU's Nano Imaging Lab. "It's not possible to write any smaller than this," said researcher Masayuki Abe, adding that, while the project sounded impressive on (really tiny) paper, it had failed to garner him any coveted cool points at the local bar. Next steps for the project will be determined once the team puts the finishing touches on the "g" and the "h."

[KarlW @ Oct 18th 2008 9:24PM]

That is extremely cool

[KarlW @ Oct 18th 2008 9:28PM]

Actually, that said, it's not much more impressive than the "IBM" atomic picture that was done in 1990. It's a nicer font, though.

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV1003.html

[Flashpoint @ Oct 18th 2008 10:43PM]

It says: "suck my... "

HEYYYYYYY !

[Samboini @ Oct 19th 2008 5:46AM]

We have been able to manipulate atoms for quite some time now, just look at some of IBM's work (amongst others).

[sid @ Oct 19th 2008 10:55AM]

i dont kno if this is possible..
but theoretically, our next hard drives, can store information this way...
making drives much smaller, but again idk if it's possible..

[Troels C @ Oct 19th 2008 7:10PM]

@KarlW: Incredible that they did that 18 years ago. I didnt even know what the internet was back then...

[Saad Rabia @ Oct 18th 2008 9:28PM]

Oh that picture, God damnit... My eyes, I need them!

[Connor @ Oct 18th 2008 9:30PM]

Money well spent.

[Ayman @ Oct 18th 2008 10:46PM]

yes indeed, next project, Atomic Pictures or Pixels

[Skyride @ Oct 18th 2008 11:24PM]

Russell, Would you like to put that forward to every major hollywood film studio?

[Oleg Prosalov @ Oct 18th 2008 9:37PM]

Can you imagine the image quality when pixels get this small? Too bad neither me nor my kids will live long enough to see it...

[Ray @ Oct 18th 2008 9:43PM]

Can you imagine the prescription glasses you'll need to wear to notice the quality?

[Saad Rabia @ Oct 18th 2008 9:57PM]

I believe that the quality you are talking about was and is being achieved everyday by using film photography. Film has no pixels; it's all about the atoms.

[Skyride @ Oct 18th 2008 10:21PM]

Exactly, Film studios don't use digital unless its needed immediately for preview or a live stream. They simply use film to film movies and digitize it at 4K quality (thats 4096×2304 FYI)

To give you an idea...... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Digital_cinema_formats.svg

[RickRussellTX @ Oct 18th 2008 11:00PM]

Your claim about film resolution vs. digital is specious. Even five years ago, professional photographers were getting equivalent and better performance from digital cameras (see http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/shootout.shtml and many others). Film does not record images on the atomic level or even the molecular level. Film grains are large crystals (relatively speaking), and the grain becomes quite obvious at high resolutions.

[Mike10010100 @ Oct 18th 2008 11:02PM]

I believe the quality you are talking about is real life.

[Skyride @ Oct 18th 2008 11:24PM]

Russell, would you like to put that proposal to every major film studio?

[Wwhat @ Oct 19th 2008 7:37AM]

And believe it or not the grain of pre-digital film becomes even more noticeable in low light condition, yes that's right, old film also had poor light sensitivity, in fact it was worse than digital is really, 400ASA was grainy but about how far you could go without getting silly, exactly like on digital point-and-shoots now.

[zomg0t @ Oct 18th 2008 9:47PM]

"It's not possible to write any smaller than this"

Why? Because the atom is the smallest particle in the universe?

[AlekZander @ Oct 18th 2008 9:48PM]

You can try writing with quarks if you want, but they'll keep clumping together and turning your text into protons. Which sort of defeats the purpose.

[zomg0t @ Oct 18th 2008 9:53PM]

I'm confident that scientists will be able to figure out a way to write something that isn't quickly destroyed with subatomic particles. There had to be at least one scientist before Masayuki heralding the previously tiniest writing as the smallest possible.

[swmarc @ Oct 18th 2008 9:56PM]

couldn't you use a smaller atom? I would like to see them writing with sodium atoms :)

[zomg0t @ Oct 18th 2008 10:06PM]

Haha! I didn't even think about that! Although they probably chose silicon for its properties and tin because its very similar to silicon (in the same column on the periodic table). But if they used silicon and germanium, the writing would be smaller.

[Saad Rabia @ Oct 18th 2008 10:10PM]

You love this stuff, zomg0t, don't ya?

No pun intended.

[Valicore @ Oct 18th 2008 10:14PM]

Strings, I want them to make it out of strings that vibrate IBM

[Skyride @ Oct 18th 2008 10:17PM]

Didn't you see? The scientists all had windmills in their beards. Your arguement is invalid.

[Catsceo @ Oct 18th 2008 11:50PM]

No, Lithium atoms, they are the smallest atoms which are solid at room temperature.

[KarlW @ Oct 19th 2008 3:42AM]

You could use Hydrogen atoms, which are the smallest stable atoms out there. They consist of one proton and one electron (no neutrons). You'd have to cool it to 14K to make it solid, but if you're writing things in atoms, I doubt you're pragmatic enough to consider that a drawback.

[Kris @ Oct 20th 2008 2:44AM]

Forgive me if my Sciece is a bit rusty...
But aren't atom's all the same size, as aposed to the COMPOUNDS of hydrogen, sodium etc which differ in size, due to the amount of atom's required to make them?

[Raimundo O @ Oct 20th 2008 2:45PM]

@Kris:

No they are not all the same size ... if you look at the periodic table you'll have a property called atomic radius ... it is different for every atom. It depends directly on the amount of electrons of the atom and their attraction to the nucleus. More electrons leads to more charge, more attraction, radius variation.

[ethana2 @ Oct 18th 2008 10:05PM]

Can you write letters 2 nm tall?
Si.

[Stephen.4 @ Oct 18th 2008 10:07PM]

I like that last sentence.

[Shunnabunich @ Oct 18th 2008 10:31PM]

It's "not possible to write any smaller than this", eh? I can hear the pixel-font enthusiasts cracking their knuckles already...

[mistablah @ Oct 18th 2008 10:41PM]

Si + 'g' + 'h' = ::SIGH:: guys...get it???

[jas0nuk @ Oct 19th 2008 9:50AM]

*sigh*

[Geoff @ Oct 18th 2008 10:49PM]

That's the smallest Adobe icon ever.

[Stiv @ Oct 19th 2008 12:41AM]

"Wow! That's small!"

"That's what she said."

[Jon Doe. @ Oct 19th 2008 12:50AM]

Where's my atomic porn?

[webon @ Oct 19th 2008 1:35AM]

I just had a seizure, thanks engadget

[whiffer @ Oct 19th 2008 3:37AM]

i guess we should have seen this coming... or could we have seen it?

[rita hainsworth @ Oct 19th 2008 6:08AM]

The problem is my Atomic pen keeps running out of atoms and the replacements are so expensive.

[rhY @ Oct 19th 2008 6:28AM]

If they can do this, how far are we from molecular assemblers? I want my computer to print me a steak.

[maveric101 @ Oct 19th 2008 5:30PM]

and maybe a new computer. O_o

[Imran @ Oct 19th 2008 7:16AM]

What are the real world applications for this?

[sharpfang @ Oct 19th 2008 7:48AM]

Silicon is an isolator. Tin is a conductor.

Guess the rest.

[Troels C @ Oct 19th 2008 9:30AM]

Silicon tins?

[Jesse S @ Oct 19th 2008 11:42AM]

Extremely small ICs?

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 19th 2008 11:23AM]

Later that same day...

"You there! Turn out your pockets!"

"Just as I suspected...ATOMS!!"

"Get out, you're fired!"

[Eric @ Oct 19th 2008 4:54PM]

If only you'd listened to him instead of walling him up in that old coke oven...

[jcbale @ Oct 19th 2008 4:28PM]

Ths sodium atom comment; good idea, however sodium could be a little tricky to deal with, it is pretty reactive