• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

The World’s First X-Ray Of A Single Atom

April 21, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Thinking of X-rays might trigger memories of broken bones or dental check-ups. But this extremely energetic light can show us more than just our bones: it is also used to study the molecular world, even biochemical reactions in real-time. One issue, though, is that researchers have never been able to study a single atom with X-rays. Until now.

Scientists have been able to characterize a single atom using X-rays. Not only they were able to distinguish the type of atoms they were seeing (there were two different ones), but they also managed to study the chemical behavior these atoms were showing.

Advertisement

“Atoms can be routinely imaged with scanning probe microscopes, but without X-rays, one cannot tell what they are made of. We can now detect exactly the type of a particular atom, one atom-at-a-time, and can simultaneously measure its chemical state,” senior author Professor Saw Wai Hla, from the University of Ohio and the Argonne National Laboratory, said in a statement. 

“Once we are able to do that, we can trace the materials down to ultimate limit of just one atom. This will have a great impact on environmental and medical sciences and maybe even find a cure that can have a huge impact for humankind. This discovery will transform the world.”

terbium

Scanning tunneling microscopy of terbium supramolecular assemblies, with the terbium atom at the center of each structure.

Image credit: Ajayi et al., Nature, 2023

The work was able to track an iron atom and an atom of terbium, an element that is part of the so-called rare-earth metals. Both of them were inserted in their respective molecular hosts. A conventional X-ray detector was supplemented with an extra special one. This latter one had a specialized sharp metal tip that had to be placed very close to the sample to collect the X-ray-excited electrons. From the measurements collected by the tip, the team could tell if it was iron or terbium, and that’s not all.

“We have detected the chemical states of individual atoms as well,” Hla explained. “By comparing the chemical states of an iron atom and a terbium atom inside respective molecular hosts, we find that the terbium atom, a rare-earth metal, is rather isolated and does not change its chemical state while the iron atom strongly interacts with its surrounding.”

rubidium atoms

Images of the supramolecular assemblies that feature six rubidium atoms and an iron one.

Image credit: Ajayi et al., Nature, 2023

The signal seen by the detector has been compared to fingerprints. It allows researchers to understand the composition of a sample, as well as studying the physical and chemical properties of it. This could be critical for improved performance and application of a variety of common and not-so-common materials.

“The technique used, and concept proven in this study, broke new ground in X-ray science and nanoscale studies,” said Tolulope Michael Ajayi, who is the first author of the paper and doing this work as part of his PhD thesis. “More so, using X-rays to detect and characterize individual atoms could revolutionize research and give birth to new technologies in areas such as quantum information and the detection of trace elements in environmental and medical research, to name a few. This achievement also opens the road for advanced materials science instrumentation.”

The study is published in the journal Nature.

An earlier version of this article was published in May 2023.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Russia’s Renaissance Insurance eyes $1 billion IPO in Moscow -source
  2. Outer, D2C outdoor furniture brand, secures $50M Series B funding to spur expansion and materials development 
  3. Are You A COVID “Super-Dodger?” Then Scientists Want To Hear From You
  4. Increased Rocket Launches Could Undo The Ozone Layer’s Recovery

Source Link: The World's First X-Ray Of A Single Atom

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Could We Be On Track Towards A Universal Cancer Vaccine? New Findings Say: Maybe
  • The “Weekend Effect” Of Weather: Is It Rainier On Saturdays And Sundays?
  • Forget Polar Bears: The Largest Bear To Live In North America Was The 3.3-Meter-Tall Short-Faced Bear
  • Earth’s Rotation Will Speed Up Tomorrow, Set To Make The Day 1.34 Milliseconds Shorter
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Caught By Rubin Observatory In Unplanned First Science Study
  • It Looks Like We’ve Found Betel-Buddy, Betelgeuse’s Suspected Companion Star
  • Silky Anteater: The World’s Smallest Anteater Pulls Out A Surprising Power Move When Threatened
  • Some People Have More Babies Of One Sex – Now We Might Know Why
  • Huge Benefits To Health And Happiness Revealed By New 4-Day Workweek Trial
  • Doctors Find 2 New Ways To Bring “Dead” Hearts Back To Life Outside The Body
  • Were Stonehenge’s Bluestones Transported by Humans Or Ice? 100-Year-Old Discovery Sparks Debate
  • Yellowstone National Park Kills First Black Bear In 5 Years After It Becomes “Food-Conditioned”
  • IFLScience We Have Questions: Why Are Yawns Contagious?
  • A Daring NASA Astronaut Once Flew Untethered To Capture A Satellite, And The Footage Says It All
  • Could Lunar Soil Support A Permanent Base On The Moon?
  • Psychologists Offer A “New Path” To The Good Life
  • Mirror Writing: Why Do So Many Children Write Backwards?
  • An Enormous “Blob” In Utah Is Up To 80,000 Years Old And Among Earth’s Oldest Organisms
  • Over Half Of Tuvalu Nationals Apply For Ballot Offering Australian “Climate Visa”
  • Process “To Unlock The Deepest Secrets Of Antarctica’s Ice” Begins With 1.5-Million-Year-Old Sample
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version