IBM makes 'world's smallest movie' using atoms

[pokerfan]

After taking a few shadowy pictures for the scientific world's paparazzi, the atom is now ready for its closeup. Today, a team of IBM scientists are bypassing the big screen to unveil what they call the "world's smallest movie." This atomic motion picture was created with the help of a two-ton IBM-made microscope that operates at a bone-chilling negative 268 degrees Celsius. This hardware was used to control a probe that pulled and arranged atoms for stop-motion shots used in the 242-frame film. A playful spin on microcomputing, the short was made by the same team of IBM eggheads who recently developed the world's smallest magnetic bit. Now that the atom's gone Hollywood, what's next, a molecular entourage?

http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/01/ibm-atomic-movie/

[siligut]

1. The IBM scientist gave a clear explanation of how they did it

I appreciate that in a smart person.

[Posteritatis]

7. It's like not filtering them through science "journalism" actually helps! (nt)

[DreamGypsy]

2. Here's a longer video (4:56) that gives some more info...

...some personal reflections.

[sir pball]

3. It always blows my mind how much basic research IBM does

For being one of the most evil megacorporations in history, IBM Research has always done some pretty amazing stuff that is pretty much in the realm of ivory-tower work - they aren't just using atomic force microscopy, they invented it! Better track record in the last 20 years than the National Labs, even.

Sure, maybe there's some profit to be had in the far far future from twiddling atoms, but most corps would look at the R&D money this takes and die laughing.

[DreamGypsy]

5. Here's an explanation of how STM fits into the larger picture of computing progress...

...first with a quote from the article I cited in my reply #4:

The ultimate goal of IBM’s STM-based research is to investigate possible pathways around the ever-narrowing bottleneck of Moore’s law, which we should start to feel in the next few years as transistors head below 14nm. While STMs themselves will probably never be used to create computer chips and storage devices — they’re really just research tools — they might help us discover new materials or processes that enable commercial processes to push towards electronic components that are fashioned from just a handful of atoms.

Then, if your have some time to read, there's an article linked at the end of that page, The future of CPU scaling: Exploring options on the cutting edge, that provides lots of details.

Near-term, the ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors) is focused on what’s referred to as “More-than-Moore” (MtM) scaling. The goal of MtM scaling is to extend the same design principles that’ve driven digital device scaling for decades over to analog circuitry, and to integrate those technologies on-die within an SoC/SiP. The goal of MtM scaling is to increase system-level power efficiency and capabilities, provide a coherent, regular roadmap for the relevant technologies, and increase device complexity. The original proposal that laid out the MtM concept states “it is the heterogeneous integration of digital and non-digital functionalities into compact systems that will be the key driver for a wide variety of application fields, such as communication, automotive, environmental control, healthcare, security and entertainment.”

More on More-than-Moore at the second link.

[sir pball]

9. Oh, I know why they're doing it

It's just so out of character for a profit-driven corporation to invent a tool to visualize atoms so that we can literally SEE how they behave is still mindblowing to me. It's not some tech that is immediately monetizable, but rather making the tools to make the tools to make the future kind of thing. The kind of thing the private sector has been lacking in the last 30 years. I say this as a former scientist deeply involved in truly basic research purely publically funded.

I guess the Koch bros have jaded me on private industry - there's no answer to "where's the 12-month profit on this?" when it comes to an ACM...it's seriously the kind of work I saw the NSF funding at Brookhaven, not what I imagine a venture capitalist throwing cash at expecting anything faster than a T-Bill return. It puts a little faith back into private enterprise, which I've never dismissed as a "true force" in the absence of stupid, immediate profit driven bookkeeping.

[Posteritatis]

6. You're right that they would, but most of them also aren't doing that hot techwise either.

People who look down their noses at basic research are pretty good at choking on the dust of people who don't in the long run.

[DreamGypsy]

4. ...and here's a brief text description of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy...

from http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/154664-ibm-creates-worlds-smallest-movie-with-a-handful-of-precisely-placed-atoms

The world’s smallest movie (which has been certified by Guinness World Records) was created with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM); a two-ton beast of a machine that operates at just above absolute zero (-268 Celsius, -450F). An STM is essentially a very small metal needle that is moved over a sample of some kind, at a distance of less than one nanometer (a human hair is around 100,000 nanometers wide). A negative voltage is applied to the sample, a positive voltage is applied to the needle, and the STM records the minute changes in quantum tunneling current as the needle passes over bumps (atoms, molecules) in the sample, which can then be turned into the visualizations that you see above. By increasing the voltage, the needle can also pick up individual atoms and move them to a new location.

Thanks for the post, PF.

[Kablooie]

8. Nice but they need to work on their story development.