The international journal ‘Nature’ featured enlarged atoms on the cover of this week. Above the somewhat blurry image showing various atomic arrangements, a large phrase ‘ATOMIC POWER’ is inserted. Below this phrase, the phrase ‘X-rays simultaneously capture elemental and chemical properties of a single atom’ was placed.
The discovery of X-rays had a profound impact on the medical and other scientific fields. German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen, who was studying gas discharge phenomena, accidentally discovered X-rays in 1895, and he was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics for this accidental discovery.
The Ohio University professor Sowai Hla’s research team captured a single atom through X-rays for the first time in history and published the research results in Nature on the 31st (local time). An atom is the smallest structural unit that makes up a substance, and it is also the smallest unit that has the chemical properties of an element that is fundamental to the composition of matter.
In the meantime, X-rays have been used to identify the characteristics of materials that cannot be seen with the naked eye. The X-ray signal produced by atoms is very weak, making it difficult to photograph single atoms with ordinary X-rays. Synchrotron X-rays were developed to reduce the amount of samples required for X-ray imaging, but the minimum atomic weight of a material that can be imaged with X-rays was more than 10,000.
The research team succeeded in capturing a single atom with a specially designed synchrotron X-ray equipment. The device was purpose-built at the XTIP beamline of the Center for Advanced Photon Sources and Nanomaterials at Argonne National Laboratory, USA. A beamline is a device that selects only radiation of desired energy when electrons rotate and emit radiation. The XTIP beamline is the world’s first dedicated beamline for synchrotron X-ray scanning tunneling microscopes.
The research team created a synchrotron X-ray scanning tunneling microscope (SX-STM) that can be placed very close to the sample to be photographed by attaching a sharp metal needle to an existing X-ray detector. Through this, the research team succeeded in taking an X-ray image of one iron (Fe) atom and one terbium (Tb) atom.
Professor Hla, who led the study, said, “Although atoms can be imaged with special microscopy equipment, it is impossible to know what they are made of without using X-rays.” “It is now possible to measure the chemical state of these atoms at the same time.”
