Clocking the Movements of Atoms

Roland Piquepaille writes "With special microscopes, scientists and engineers involved in nanotechnologies have been able to 'see' atoms for a while. But they couldn't clock the atomic response to events which typically occur in nanoseconds. Now, U.S. physicists have found a way to clock the movements of atoms at the nanometer scale. In their experiments, they were able to literally watch atoms switching positions in ferroelectric materials. Adding the dimension of time to the observation of the nanoworld could lead to easier developments of 'materials for improved memory applications in microelectronics.'"

I figured it out faster

[From A Far Away Land]

"In their experiments, they were able to literally watch atoms switching positions in ferroelectric materials."

I'd have just unplugged all the atoms, and when plugged in again, they'd all start counting from 12:00

Re:I figured it out faster

[Ohreally_factor]

Shit, dude. Maybe you coild help me out. All my atoms are doing is flashing 12:00 since I plugged them back in. Is this going to happen every time there is a power failure?

Re:I figured it out faster

[From A Far Away Land]

You need an atomic UPS, or electron battery backup to avoid that. Otherwise get some atoms that don't lose power for several minutes to get past short power losses.

Snore...

[dummyname12]

Wake me up when we're OVERclocking atoms.

Re:Snore...

[grammar fascist]

Wake me up when we're OVERclocking atoms.

I boiled some water yesterday.

Re:I figured it out faster

[epp_b]

I'd have just unplugged all the atoms, and when plugged in again, they'd all start counting from 12:00

...December 31, 1969.

At long last...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they'll finally be able to see the microscopic chance of the average Slashdot reader getting laid.

Re:At long last...

[MonoSynth]

Saturday Night's approaching, in Europe it's already started, time for our weekly dose of melancholy to prevent us from commiting suicide.

Re:At long last...

[Holi]

sweet, another way that I'm not the average slashdotter.

Re:At long last...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"sweet, another way that I'm not the average slashdotter."

Yeah, we believe you.

Re:At long last...

[brian0918]

"sweet, another way that I'm not the average slashdotter."

Cybersex doesn't count.

Re:At long last...

[sfeinstein]

Mod parent +1 ambiguous. I'll choose to read his remark as "I don't even have that small a chance" :-)

Re:At long last...

[TheMadWeaz]

I think that generalization is inacurate. Power is sexy... right? And im positive that slashdot readers have more electronics than anyone else!

Basic stages

[i_should_be_working]

Now, I'm never one to complain about the decisions of /. editors (and I'm not here either), but it's pretty funny seeing this in the hardware sections.

Maybe Ars Technica will have a review later...

TFA? Yeah, it's worth reading. It's pretty cool the toys these guys (physicists in general) get to play with.

BS

[Mr. Underbridge]

With special microscopes, scientists and engineers involved in nanotechnologies have been able to 'see' atoms for a while. But they couldn't clock the atomic response to events which typically occur in nanoseconds.

*Femto*second laser spectroscopy has been available for some time now to investigate chemical reactions that happen much faster than nanoseconds. Got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999 for Zewail.

Re:BS

[i_should_be_working]

AFAIK laser spectroscopy is used on small numbers (as in less than an Avogadro's number) of atoms, molecules or slightly larger structures. It also often ionizes or otherwise rips the structure apart. The thing that may be new here is that they are working on solid materials for which atomic force microscopes and tunneling microscopes may have been the state of the art until now.

Avogadro's # is *small*??!!

[cagle_.25]

By whom is

602 214 150 000 000 000 000 000

considered small?!

Re:BS

[kebes]

You're quite right. Femtosecond laser spectroscopy has already pushed the time resolution way beyond what this new report is claiming. In fact attosecond pulses have even been generated, making it possible not only to measure motion of atoms, but motion of electrons within atoms during a chemical reaction.

However, it should be noted that this new report uses X-ray microdiffraction. They obtain picosecond time resolution, simultaneous with structural information. The article summary is not especially exact, but the structural information (positions of atoms) of this technique is indeed unique. Femtosecond laser spectrscopy will return quite a bit of information, but it doesn't really tell you the movement of the atoms in a bulk sample (only movement of atoms in relation to each other, during the chemical reaction). This new technique appears to be applicable to simultaneously deducing the locations and motions of atoms in solids (as opposed to gases/plasmas).

The time resolution is nothing amazing, but it is nevertheless quite impressive that they can deduce the motion of a domain wall in a solid with picosecond time resolution.

For anyone interested, the actually paper in question is:
Grigoriev et al. Physical Review Letters (12 May 2006), 187601. DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.187601

Re:BS

[XchristX]

The article can be obtained from Grigoriev's webpage itself:

PDF WARNING!!!

http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~alexey/PRL06_grigor iev.pdf [wisc.edu]

Re:BS

[Chris Kamel]

This new technique appears to be applicable to simultaneously deducing the locations and motions of atoms in solids (as opposed to gases/plasmas).
Doesn't this conflict with Quantum mechanics?

Re:BS

[waxigloo]

There is a difference between seeing individual atoms move in ferroelectric domain inversion and 'investigating chemical reactions'. Femtosecond laser spectroscopy can really only tell you something about the atomic makeup of a sample and how it changes on a femtosecond timescale...not so much seeing atoms of the sample moving around. So, this is an important step and not so much 'BS' as you put it.

Hits for Roland

[SuperBanana]

*Femto*second laser spectroscopy has been available for some time now to investigate chemical reactions that happen much faster than nanoseconds. Got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999 for Zewail.

Yes, but that didn't get our favorite re-hash submitter Roland Piquepaille some hits to his web log.

Re:Hits for Roland

[Ohreally_factor]

No Roland link this time, other than if you click his name.

Re:Hits for Roland

[grammar fascist]

Yes, but that didn't get our favorite re-hash submitter Roland Piquepaille some hits to his web log.

It's okay, SuperBanana. We're all jealous of Roland.

Re:Hits for Roland

[k98sven]

Jealous?

Yeah, I guess it does take a talent of a kind to write up so many rehashes of press releases and still manage to misunderstand and misinterpret every single one.

How fast are these things moving, really?

[Anonymous Coward]

How fast is one nanometer per nanosecond, in meters per second? I don't have my calculator with me.

Re:He fooled you! - sorta

[From A Far Away Land]

You're right, he fooled me, I didn't see he was joking. I just assumed he was American, or worked at NASA so he didn't know metric.

1,000,000,000/1,000,000,000 of course = 1/1 but not everyknow would know that a nanosecond is a billionth of a second.

Re:He fooled you! - sorta

[From A Far Away Land]

"Of course it was a joke--it's the same fucking prefix."

Not everyone is smart enough to realize that identical prefixes cancel each other out, let alone know the meaning of "condescending" or "fuckwad" well enough to avoid appearing to be exactly that by picking a fight anonymously on the Interweb.

Re:He fooled you! - sorta

[19thNervousBreakdown]

So wait, are you actually suggesting that you're not condescending? Not that I give a shit, but your comments have pretty much been the definition of condescending.

You're only a fuckwad if you try to say claim otherwise.

Re:He fooled you! - sorta

[fufubag]

The U.S.A. is better and smarter than your country and N.A.S.A. is better than your space agency, assuming your country has one that is.

Re:He fooled you! - sorta

[fufubag]

Ok, anonymous coward, key word being coward. I was simply replying to someone's jealous comments, which in themselves were better suited for your post. I was defending my country, and I'll do it until it goes down in the flames of jealousy, either from with in or out.

Re:He fooled you! - sorta

[x2A]

It's nothing to do with metric, and it's nothing to do with "a nanosecond is a billionth ...", you're digging your hole deeper dude, you're trying to point out stupidity of others when you're the only one here who's made an error.

Re:He fooled you! - sorta

[From A Far Away Land]

Actually nanoseconds does have to do with metric. I admitted that I didn't notice he was joking, because it's common to encounter people who don't understand unit cancel, or metric concepts.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[gomoX]

43 libraries of congress per quick-defrost-of-a-chicken-on-a-microwave-second.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"How fast is one nanometer per nanosecond, in meters per second?"

Approximately 1.5 parsecs.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[gjuk]

Clearly you're not in America - or you'd be looking for miles per hour. Or inches per week. Or feet per day. Actually, I'm in Britain and we're just as bad. Sorry.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[mortonda]

Google is your friend [google.com]

(Yes I know how trivial it is to cancel out the "nano" in both the numerator and denominator, but google is more fun)

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[70Bang]

Google is your friend...


...unless you're Microsoft.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[Atario]

Actually, 1 m/s is ridiculously slow, at least for gas atoms.

http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1997/press .html [nobelprize.org] says:

At room temperature the atoms and molecules of which the air consists move in different directions at a speed of about 4,000 km/hr.

This is around 1100 m/s, or 2500 MPH. It goes on to point out that you don't get down to the 1 m/s range till about a millionth of a Kelvin (at which point it's a quarter of 1 m/s).

So, remember, every second, you're being bombarded (BOMBARDMENT! [POW!]) by

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[Pranadevil2k]

1.1 meters per second is aproximately 4000 kilometers per hour. 1100 meters per second would reach 4000 kilometers in less than 4 seconds.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[Seraphim1982]

1.1 meters per second is aproximately 4000 kilometers per hour.
No, it's just under 4 kilometers per hour.
1.1 m/s * 3600 s/hr * 1/1000 km/m = 3.96km/hr

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[Pranadevil2k]

... thus the word aproximately. The real number is 1.111111111111 ... I just rounded to the nearest tenth.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[Atario]

You do realize a meter is different from a kilometer, right?

Just checking.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[Seraphim1982]

... thus the word aproximately. The real number is 1.111111111111 ... I just rounded to the nearest tenth.

No, the "real number" is 1111.11111111111...
You're off by a factor of 1000.

Re:How fast are these things moving, really?

[grammar fascist]

How fast is one nanometer per nanosecond, in meters per second? I don't have my calculator with me.

I don't know about meters/second, but it's approximately 1.2096 meters/microfortnight. Does that help?

thanks, that's helpful

[Goldsmith]

There are already plenty of ways to "see" the motions of atoms which do not require a very expensive national X-ray source. This technique is not comparable to AFM and STM, which are now cheap enough to use in teaching labs.

What about simulations?

[brian0918]

Maybe we couldn't physically see how atoms are moving over short time intervals, but we've been able to simulate it for quite a while. I used to run simulations at Sandia National Labs in New Mexico that looked at the interactions of a couple dozen atoms on a femtosecond scale.

Simulation Experimentation?

[kingkoopaunion]

Simulation is fine, but it isn't always applicable. Especially when working with exotic materials, where the umpteen parameters required for a simulation to produce useful and accurate results are not known, simulation may fall short. It's one thing to make predictions based on simulation, but another to be able to verify those predictions.

Don't get me wrong. Simulations are wonderful tools but, since they are many times (as I assume they are in this case) based solely on theory, experimental measurement

Re:What about simulations?

[Matt Edd]

Often you define how well a simulation works by how accurate the results are. Sometimes we can't comapre the means just the ends but it's the means that tells "how" and not just "what".

Re:What about simulations?

[hobbes75]

Physically seeing the atoms can help verify or improve the simulations.

Re:What about simulations?

[brian0918]

"Physically seeing the atoms can help verify or improve the simulations."

And how would these simulations need improving? Here is the code [univie.ac.at] I was using. Sure, it's only approximating reality, but the degree to which it is an approximation can be increased or decreased.

Re:What about simulations?

[hobbes75]

"Here is the code I was using. Sure, it's only approximating reality, but the degree to which it is an approximation can be increased or decreased."

So it can help for example to decide how to tune the approximation and to verify your approximation and simulation. There is no perfect simulation, it may just be good enough for the job at hand.

Re:What about simulations?

[brian0918]

"There is no perfect simulation, it may just be good enough for the job at hand."

Well, obviously. Nobody is trying to simulate things perfectly--that would be a huge waste of resources, but the summary claimed that we couldn't clock the time for nanosecond-scale interactions, which is completely wrong.

Re:What about simulations?

[darkmeridian]

There has to be some empirical data undergirding the models used, and there has to be some empirical confirmation of the results of the simulations run from that model. The new technique can be used for both of these purposes. After all, it's entirely possible to build an internally-consistent model of the world that may be quite wrong. See "brane theory" and it's ten-dimensions.

Phew!

[Anonymous Coward]

they were able to literally watch atoms switching positions in ferroelectric materials

For a second there, I assumed that they'd built a microsope that could only figuratively watch things. Good job you pointed out that it literally works!

Clocking is good, but

[presidentbeef]

What about overclocking those babies?! Whooo!

No longer will atoms be bogged down at the n00b 'factory-spec' speed of light.

Now to find the multiplier...

Re:Clocking is good, but

[PhrostyMcByte]

When can I get this in my optical mouse? I'll surely p4wn all those 13yos!

Finally, some much-needed police funding

[noidentity]

This opens a new source of funding from speeding atoms:

COPper atom: Do you know how fast you were going?
Helium atom (in a high voice): Not at all, officer!

Re:Finally, some much-needed police funding

[AoT]

Helium atom: But I know where I am!

Re:Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

[shadwstalkr]

Maybe.

Re:Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

[astronouth7303]

I was wondering that.

It would be funny if all electronics had to be constantly shot with x-rays so they behave the same as in a lab.

Anyone else thinking tele-transporter?

[phreakincool]

I figure if they're close to figuring out the timing of atoms then it won't be long before they should be able to tell and predict where these atoms will be next.

Won't be long now fellow geeks...
Soon, Tranporters!
And then, Replicators!