First self-assembling nanopatterns imaged by Sandia researchers
September 3, 2001 | Source: KurzweilAI
Self-assembling nanostructures have been observed and recorded in real time video for the first time by Sandia National Labs researchers.
Lead atoms self-assembling on a bed of copper atoms
The nanostructures, which self-assemble and transform, were observed with a low-energy electron microscope (LEEM).
Theorists long have believed that competing attractive and repulsive inter-atomic interactions can lead to the spontaneous formation of ordered patterns in widely varying chemical and physical systems. Potentially, such patterns could be used as templates for nanostructure fabrications.
The research was described in the Aug. 30 Nature.