N1005 IBM Research: AFM

IBM Scientists Invent a Thermometer for the Nanoscale

<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">The IBM lab responsible for inventing the scanning tunneling microscope and the atomic force microscope has invented another critical tool for helping us understand the nanoworld.</span></i><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Accurately measuring the temperature of objects at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoscopic_scale" target="_blank">nanoscale</a> has been challenging scientists for decades. Current techniques are not accurate and they typically generate artifacts, limiting their reliability. </span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Motivated by this challenge and their need to precisely characterize the temperature of new transistor designs <a href="https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/44357.wss" target="_blank">to meet the demand of future cognitive computers</a>, scientists in Switzerland from IBM and ETH Zurich have invented a breakthrough technique to measure the temperature of nano- and macro-sized objects. The patent-pending invention is being disclosed for the first time today in the peer-review journal <i><a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160303/ncomms10874/full/ncomms10874.html" style="font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank">Nature Communications</a>, "Temperature mapping of operating nanoscale devices by scanning probe thermometry (</i></span><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, helvetica, 'ＭＳ Ｐゴシック', 'ＭＳ ゴシック', Osaka, 'MS PGothic', sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">doi:10.1038/ncomms10874)</span><span style="font-family: 'helvneue light for ibm', sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">"</span></i><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></i><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7yjL_TDP_Ss" width="560"></iframe></span><br /><a name="more"></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div> <b><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">A History of Invention</span></b><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">In the 1980s, IBM scientists Gerd Binnig and the late Heinrich Rohrer wanted to directly explore a surface’s electronic structure and imperfections. The instrument they needed to take such measurements didn’t exist, yet. So they did what any good scientist would do: they invented one. It became known as the <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/microscope/" target="_blank">scanning tunneling microscope</a> (STM), opening the door to nanotechnology. Just a few years later, the invention was recognized with the highest of honors, the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1986.</span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /><span style="color: black;">More than 30 years later IBM scientists continue to follow in the footsteps of Binnig and Rohrer and with their latest invention.</span></span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Dr. <a href="http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=zurich-FAM" target="_blank">Fabian Menges</a>, an IBM postdoc and co-inventor of the technique said, “We started back in 2010 and simply never gave up. Previous research was focused on a nanoscale thermometer, but we should have been inventing a thermometer for the nanoscale — an important distinction. This adjustment led us to develop a technique which combines local thermal sensing with the measuring capability of a microscope — we call it <a href="http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:47862/eth-47862-02.pdf" target="_blank">scanning probe thermometry</a>.”</span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1609/24533887792_d18d4d3576_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1609/24533887792_d18d4d3576_z.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">IBM scientist Fabian Menges with his invention.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"> <b><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">How it Works: A Scanning Probe Thermometry</span></b><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">The most common technique to measure temperature on the macroscale is to bring a thermometer into thermal contact with the sample. This is how a fever thermometer works. Once it’s placed under our tongue it equilibrates to our body temperature so that we can determine our temperature at a healthy 37 degrees C. Unfortunately, it gets a little more challenging when using a thermometer to measure a nanoscopic object.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">For example, it would be impossible to use a typical thermometer to measure the temperature of an individual virus. The size of the virus is too small and the thermometer cannot equilibrate without significantly disturbing the virus temperature.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">To solve this challenge, IBM scientists developed a single scan non-equilibrium contact thermometry technique to measure the temperature of nanoscopic objects using a scanning probe.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">As the scanning probe thermometer and the object cannot thermally equilibrate at the nanoscale, two signals are measured simultaneously: a small heat flux, and its resistance to heat flow. Combining these two signal the temperature of nanoscopic objects can then be quantified for an accurate result. </span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">IBM scientist Dr. <a href="http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=zurich-bgo" target="_blank">Bernd Gotsmann</a> and co-inventor explains, “The technique is analogous to touching a hot plate and inferring its temperature from sensing the heat flux between our own body and the heat source. Essentially, the tip of the probe is our the hand. Our perception to hot and cold can be very helpful to get an idea of an objects temperature, but it can also be misleading if the resistance to heat flow is unknown.” </span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Previously, scientists weren’t accurately including this resistance dependence; but only measuring the rate of the thermal energy transfer through the surface, know as heat flux. In the paper, the authors included the effects of local variations of thermal resistance to measure the temperature of an indium arsenide (InAs) nanowire, and a self-heated gold interconnect with a combination of a few-miliKelvin and few-nanometer spatial resolution.</span><br /><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1587/24346717690_49899b720d_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1587/24346717690_49899b720d_z.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">From left to right, IBM scientists Nico Mosso, </span><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Bernd Gotsmann, Fabian Motzfeld and Fabian Menges in</span><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">the Noise Free Lab with the scanning probe thermometer.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Menges adds, "Not only is the scanning probe thermometer accurate, it meets the trifecta for tools: it's easy to operate, simple to build, and very versatile, in that it can be used to measure the temperature of nano- and micro-sized hot spots that can locally effect the physical properties of materials or govern chemical reactions in devices such as transistors, memory cells, thermoelectric energy converters or plasmonic structures. The applications are endless.”<b> </b></span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /><b><span style="color: black;">Noise Free Labs</span></b> </span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">It’s no coincidence that the team began to see improvements in the development of the scanning probe thermometer 18 months ago when they moved their research into the new Noise Free Labs -- six meters underground at the <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/labs/zurich/brnc.html" target="_blank">Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center</a>on the campus of IBM Research-Zurich. </span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">This unique environment, which shields the experiments from vibration, acoustic noise, electromagnetic signals and temperature fluctuations, helped the team achieve sub-milliKelvin precision.</span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">“While we had the benefit of this unique room, the technique can also produce reliable results in normal environment,” said Menges.</span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><br /><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Next Steps</span></b><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">“We hope the paper will produce both a lot of excitement and relief for scientists, who like us, have been searching for such a tool,” said Gotsmann. “Similar to the STM, we hope to license this technique to tool manufacturers who can then bring it to market as an additional function to their microscopy product line.”</span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span>   <br /><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">The scientists would like to thank the 7th Program Framework for its support under the <a href="http://www.nanoheat-project.eu/">NANOHEAT</a> project and the Swiss National Science Foundation.</span></i><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><o:p></o:p><br />

The IBM lab responsible for inventing the scanning tunneling microscope and the atomic force microscope has invented another critical tool ...

30 Years of Atomic Force Microscopy: IBM Scientists Trigger and Observe Reactions in an Individual Molecule

8:03 AM N1000 0

<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Once again, IBM scientists are opening the eyes of the world to objects that exist only at the atomic scale.</span></i><br /><i><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OOkbt16M3Mg" width="560"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In a new paper <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2438">appearing today</a> in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2438">peer-reviewed journal </a><i><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2438">Nature Chemistry</a>, </i>IBM researchers, in collaboration with CiQUS at the University of Santiago de Compostela</span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, have observed a fascinating molecular rearrangement reaction known as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergman_cyclization">Bergman cyclisation</a></span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– </span>which was</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> first described in 1972 by American chemist Robert George Bergman. The paper will be featured on the cover of the March issue.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"></span><br /></span><br /><a name="more"></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.usc.es/ciqus/en/general-information/staff/diego-pena-gil">Professor Diego Peña</a>, a chemist at the University of Santiago de Compostela and co-author of the paper, explains the significance: “At first the rearrangement was simply considered a curiosity, but in the late 1980s it was discovered that the mechanism of action for some anticancer drugs, which are based on this reaction. This naturally attracted a lot of attention from the scientific community, and now it's a very popular reaction in organic chemistry.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The secret to imaging the Bergman reaction is a technique known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_force_microscopy">atomic force microscopy</a> (AFM), which makes use of a nanosized-sharp tip to measure tiny forces between the tip and the sample.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The AFM was first <a href="http://www.qudev.ethz.ch/phys4/studentspresentations/afm/Atomic%20force%20microscope.pdf">demonstrated</a>in 1986 by IBM scientists Gerd Binnig, Christoph Gerber, and Calvin Quate of Stanford University. Binnig, who is solely listed on the <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US4724318">first patent</a>,</span></span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">was quoted in <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/a-beautiful-noise"><i>IEEE Spectrum Magazine</i> in 2004</a> saying that the idea for the AFM came to him subconsciously while he was lying on the couch. Not long afterwards Binnig and his colleague, the late <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/heinrich-rohrer.shtml">Heinrich Rohrer</a>, received the Nobel Prize for the <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/microscope/">scanning tunneling microscope</a> (STM), the predecessor of the AFM.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVMbH8Tkwdmr2A0Jm5Nnfw2LA2CD53zooo1y3Y_lhJYxy-Y3RUR929vK_LmSIyekcEEsEowhwbc-_wmyCHoJwm1SOHLoLI7NQs322n6siDK95WQsVF2uLtvrLFV_6kefIUrqY-kq8nx_o/s1600/berg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVMbH8Tkwdmr2A0Jm5Nnfw2LA2CD53zooo1y3Y_lhJYxy-Y3RUR929vK_LmSIyekcEEsEowhwbc-_wmyCHoJwm1SOHLoLI7NQs322n6siDK95WQsVF2uLtvrLFV_6kefIUrqY-kq8nx_o/s400/berg.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bergman cyclisation is a fascinating rearrangement reaction with<br />implications beyond organic chemistry. It has now been shown that a reversible<br />Bergman cyclisation action in a single molecule sitting on an ultra thin NaCl film<br />can be directly imaged using atomic force microscopy.</td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Studying Individual Bonds With Advanced Tip</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">More recently, IBM scientists in Zurich have modified the tip of their AFM with a single carbon monoxide molecule. This diatomic molecule, which is less than one nanometer long, produces images so clear that scientists are able to study the sample’s chemical nature based on the minute differences between individual bonds.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The IBM team, led by <a href="http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=zurich-GME">Gerhard Meyer</a> and <a href="http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=zurich-LGR">Leo Gross</a>, first published their technique in 2009 in the journal <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/325/5944/1110.full%29"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Science</span></i></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">by producing a stunning image of the flat molecule pentacene. Over the next several years, they worked on refining the technique and pushing its limits beyond what they ever expected.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gross comments, “One main differentiator of our technique, with respect to other established techniques, is that we measure single<b> </b>molecules. Another advantage is that we can use the tip to initiate chemical reactions of individual molecules and we can follow the reactions and study their products at the atomic scale.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A few years later the team produced a string of breakthroughs in 2012, including the ability to <a href="http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v7/n4/full/nnano.2012.20.html"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">measure the electric field produced by a single molecule</span></a><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, </span><span lang="DE" style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/337/6100/1326.full"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">a demonstration of</span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"> bond-order discrimination</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">and in 2013, </span><span lang="DE" style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.106103"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the exact measurement of adsorption geometries</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPddO0tYfaGNPjZNxARD2XMLwFoo3jEqPwklNeXy0odxMjwyXn5TUG1bwF-RO_oXVLTbKQabJUyTaPPleJdjFWESBJHqpkEbe8EjNjmL-6eDtrZCvEJj0eY_RNEWn5F-iKy4pa7adouhE/s1600/ezgif.com-video-to-gif-2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPddO0tYfaGNPjZNxARD2XMLwFoo3jEqPwklNeXy0odxMjwyXn5TUG1bwF-RO_oXVLTbKQabJUyTaPPleJdjFWESBJHqpkEbe8EjNjmL-6eDtrZCvEJj0eY_RNEWn5F-iKy4pa7adouhE/s320/ezgif.com-video-to-gif-2.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bergman cyclisation Diyne from model to image. </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">During this period of notable publications, the team began receiving requests from scientists around the world, including a professor at Aberdeen University, who proposed in 2009 to use their technique to identify a species of bacterium collected from the deepest place on Earth. This pressure-tolerant bacterium — called Dermacoccus abyssi — produced a chemical compound which could not be recognised. Using their technique, IBM scientists </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">successfully <a href="http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v2/n10/abs/nchem.765.html"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">imaged and identified it as cephalandole A</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, a molecule previously isolated from a Taiwanese orchid.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With their latest work, the team has found another application for their technique</span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">: the ability to induce chemical reactions, like the Bergman cyclisation.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Working at low temperatures and on special, inert surfaces like the two-atom-thick layers of salt that we used in our paper, we are able to stabilize reactive intermediates that under normal conditions are too short-lived to be studied in detail. Not only can we form highly reactive intermediates using the tip to create and cleave bonds within the molecule, we can even switch between different reaction intermediates.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remarkably, we can change almost all important properties of these molecules by switching them, affecting their reactivity, structure and their optical, electronic and magnetic behavior,” said Gross.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As reported in <i>Nature Chemistry</i> this is the first time that a reversible Bergman cyclization has been demonstrated.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/463/19305686289_baba0887a7_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/463/19305686289_baba0887a7_n.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">IBM scientist Bruno Schuler</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Professor Pe</span><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">ñ</span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">a adds, “This work suggests the great potential of this technique to discover unexpected new reactions. In conventional solution chemistry, after so many decades of rigorous research, the chances of finding new important reactions are quite limited. Compared to this, single-molecule chemistry by tip manipulation is in its infancy, and I expect extremely exciting discoveries in the near future.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The next steps for the team will be to synthesize large custom-designed molecules and molecular networks with the tip that cannot be made by any other means. The team is also interested in exploring new applications for molecules, such as molecular logic devices based on single-electron transfer. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=zurich-BSC">Bruno Schuler</a>, IBM postdoc and first author of the paper, adds, “The molecules we have investigated here are promising building blocks for molecular logic devices. We can envision forming networks with covalent bonds established between these radicals. Moreover, the switching of the molecules, effecting its transport and magnetic properties, might be useful functions for such devices in the future.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/rgbgrp/">Prof. Robert Bergman</a> shared his excitement on the paper with IBM scientists via email commenting, "When we first reported this reaction I had no idea that it would be biologically relevant, or that the reaction could someday be visualized at the molecular level."</span></span><br /><i style="font-family: 'helvetica neue';"><br /></i><i style="font-family: 'helvetica neue';">Read the paper here: </i><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.54902); color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Reversible Bergman cyclization by atomic manipulation,” Nature Chemistry, AOP 25 Jan 2016, doi: </span><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2438" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease-out 0s; background-position: 0px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #d32605; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; transition: all 0.1s ease-out 0s;" target="_blank">10.1038/nchem.2438</a></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3821464279005499761" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3821464279005499761" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a>

30 Years of Atomic Force Microscopy: IBM Scientists Trigger and Observe Reactions in an Individual Molecule

AFM atomic force microscopy CiQUS IBM Research - Zurich nano 30 Years of Atomic Force Microscopy: IBM Scientists Trigger and Observe Reactions in an Individual Molecule

Once again, IBM scientists are opening the eyes of the world to objects that exist only at the atomic scale. In a new paper appearing today...