Hip-Hop Atoms

Roland Piquepaille writes "For the first time, a team of physicists of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has controlled "the movement of a single atom back and forth between neighboring locations on a crystal." This will allow to build nanoscale devices atom by atom. Not happy enough with this technological breakthrough, the NIST team also discovered that the atoms were 'noisy' when moving on the crystal surface. They converted the electronic signals emitted by the atoms into audio ones and they were quite surprised to hear something similar to a 'hip-hop' musician's rhythmic 'scratching'. The audio files also helped the team to know in real time that atoms have moved into desired positions. Read more for pictures and references or jump here to listen to the hip-hop atoms (Real Player necessary, 2 minutes and 40 seconds)."