Picture of single atom suspended in electric field wins top science photography prize

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...y-engineering-physical-sciences-a8206196.html

This picture, taken at the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University and showing a single glowing atom of strontium, is the Overall Winner in the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's annual photography competition.

So, I know I'm dumb, but how was he able to make a single atom visible to the naked eye?

It’s photons emitted by a single atom. If I read it correctly, by other means, they know they have 1 atom trapped. So that little blue dot in the gap is coming from the smallest possible LED, as it were. The actual size of the dot is bigger than the atom - given the wavelength and optics and all.


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Charles_McG said:

It’s photons emitted by a single atom. If I read it correctly, by other means, they know they have 1 atom trapped. So that little blue dot in the gap is coming from the smallest possible LED, as it were. The actual size of the dot is bigger than the atom - given the wavelength and optics and all.


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Click to expand...

Okay, so it's a picture of proof of a single atom, not a picture of a single atom.

It's a picture of a single atom in about the same sense that Elon's Tesla is going to Mars.

Light can't build an image of a single atom in any normal meaning of image - the wavelength is hundreds of nanometers, compared to Strontiums' atomic radius of 200-250 picometers (depending on how it's defined).
Don't ask me how they get sub-femtometer distance measurements out of light in the LISA gravity wave instruments - I think they use 'enhanced interrogation methods'.

At my non-cider job, we have a microscope in the next building over from mine that can image platinum atoms in a more traditional sense - a raster of pixels where the Pt atom is more than 1 pixel across. But it doesn't use light to build the 'image'.

Bat-mite said:

So, I know I'm dumb, but how was he able to make a single atom visible to the naked eye?

Click to expand...

The neat thing is, that you can see (or photograph) a bright spot no matter how small it is as long as it emits enough light. Below the limit of your eyes it becomes impossible to resolve details of the spot like its exact size and the spot will appear no different than other spots below the minimum size that can be resolved. In case of a digital image, if the lens is good enough, just a single pixel will be brighter.

The same effect can be observed in astronomy. Distant stars are visually so small that it becomes impossible to resolve its size. One of the most distant stars that is visible with the bare eye is Nu Cephei. It has an estimated radius of 1*10^-5 light years and is estimated to be located at a distance of about 4700 light years. If one had "magic vision" - that is not only superhuman vision but also beyond what physical laws allow - it would appear similar in size as a Strontium atom with an atomic radius of 2.15*10-^10m at a distance of 0.1m (about 4"). So the next time when you look at the night sky, keep in mind that some of the dimmest dots up there "appear" *) to be smaller than a single atom on the tip of your nose.

Reinhard

*) scare quotes, because its more of a mathematical curiosity than a physically valid comparison

From years ago:

[video=youtube;oSCX78-8-q0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0[/video]