Reported in the Sept. 9, 2004, online version of the journal Science, the advance enables scientists to observe and control, for the first time, the movement of a single atom back and forth between neighboring locations on a crystal and should make it easier to efficiently build nanoscale devices "from the bottom up," atom by atom.
The NIST team was surprised to find that the atoms emitted a characteristic electronic "noise" as they moved between two different types of bonding sites on the crystal surface. By converting this electronic signal into an audio signal, the researchers were able to "hear" the switching take place. The sound resembles a hip hop musician's rhythmic "scratching" and can be used by researchers to know in real time that atoms have moved into desired positions.