Earth & Sky

Nanotech creates most precise point ever

The world's sharpest point is created in the laboratory of Robert Wolkow of the University of Alberta. Shown above is a wire, about 1/1,000 the width of a human hair, of tungsten, an element commonly used in the filiment of light bulbs. Using a field ion microscope and nitrogen gas, Wolkow and his colleagues sharpened the wire to the width of a single tungsten atom.

JB: I’m Joel Block.

_DB: And I’m Deborah Byrd. Nanotechnology, the science of the invisibly small, has created the most precise point in existence: a tip a million times sharper than the point of a really sharp pencil.

JB: Physicist Robert Wolkow of the University of Alberta was observing a tungsten needle under a microscope when he noticed something strange. It was a chemical reaction between the needle and airborne nitrogen, which caused atoms to drop away from the edges – but not the center – of the needle.

DB: In other words, this chemical reaction sharpened the tip of the needle, much as you’d sharpen a pencil. The tip of the needle became sharp on the scale of a single atom. Wolkow hopes these single–atom tips will prove useful in electron microscopes, which use streams of electrons – or charged particles – to examine exceedingly small objects.

Wolkow: It would be like buying a modest car and imagine someone sold you a sort of magic set of spark plugs for a cost that’s a small fraction of the cost of the car and you put those spark plugs in and the car was like a racing car. That’s what we’re hoping, that we would improve the character
of a microscope and we would just by changing the electron emissions source we would make a superior microscope.

JB: Let us know what you think about nanotechnology and other 21st century technologies at earthsky.org. With thanks to the National Science Foundation, we’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.

Written by Jeremy Shere, Eleanor Imster, Deborah Byrd

2 Comments for Nanotech creates most precise point ever

1. 1

   Nov 14, 02:16 PM #

   Chad Andrews says:

   I hope you don’t mind my email being nothing but this:

   I think nanotechnology will help. . . in a small way.

   Chad

2. 2

   Nov 15, 04:24 PM #

   Manny says:

   I don’t get the connection of how a single-atom tip helps an electron microscope.