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Confused about atoms in this picture?

Comments

  • #2
    Professor_Fink
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 861 ✭✭✭Professor_Fink


    First, let me start by saying that this is not a photograph. You can't see atoms, in the conventional sense of the word, because the wavelength of visible light is much more than the effective radius of an atom. The image you link to is from an atomic force microscope (AFM). See the wikipedia article for an expalnation of what an AFM is.

    Basically an AFM uses a very fine probe (a really really sharp point) which it essentially drags across the surface feeling the force excerted by the atoms located on the surface. The image you see is created from this data. You are not seeing that atoms as such, but rather their area of influence. The "blue matter" is not matter at all, it is simply an area where the probe is not as strongly influenced.


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