IMAGINE a machine that can assemble an object atom by atom. That may be a step closer with the demonstration of electrons moving like a “quantum submarine” inside a material.
Manipulating atoms directly is a major goal of nanotechnology, but remains a long way off. The best that has been achieved so far is to push individual atoms around using a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM), a device which can obtain images at the atomic scale using electrons emitted from a stylus just one atom wide at its tip.
Now Richard Palmer, Peter Sloan and Sumet Sakulsermsuk of the University of…
