Science has always fascinated me. As a teen I assumed that my life would be somehow involved in science. In high school I decided that I would study biology in college and then go from there. Life had other things planned and I [...]]]>

The Way We Saw Molecules In The Past - Just A Drawing

Science has always fascinated me. As a teen I assumed that my life would be somehow involved in science. In high school I decided that I would study biology in college and then go from there. Life had other things planned and I never got to college. The fascination with science has never died. And what better time in the progression of scientific discovery that right now?

So now they have developed a method for imagining a molecule. Until now when we wanted to represent a molecule we could only do it with a graphic done by an artist. In our textbooks we would see the typical ball and stick figures that represented one molecule or another. That is one on the left.

But now, scientists at IBM have developed a method to actually image the chemical structure of a molecule. The method is called “non-contact atomic force microscopy.” They focused on a single molecule of pentacene. The molecule is made up of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms.

The result of this procedure is an amazing image of a pentacene molecule.

Pentacene Molecule Imaged By IBM

This is from the IBM supplied description: “The delicate inner structure of a pentacene molecule imaged with an atomic force microscope. For the first time, scientists achieved a resolution that revealed the chemical structure of a molecule. The hexagonal shapes of the five carbon rings in the pentacene molecule are clearly resolved. Even the positions of the hydrogen atoms around the carbon rings can be deduced from the image. (Pixels correspond to actual data points)”  Image courtesy of IBM Research – Zurich

IBM Research – Zurich scientists Fabian Mohn, Leo Gross, Nikolaj Moll (standing), Gerhard Meyer and Reto Schlittler (from left to right) in the STM/AFM laboratory. In front of them is the scanning tunneling/atomic force microscope used for the experiments. The team is reviewing the first-principles density functional theory calculations that corroborated the experimental findings of imaging the Pentacene molecule at atomic resolution.

IBM Scientists

You can read more at the IBM Research site: http://www.zurich.ibm.com/news/09/pentacene.html