Bridging the Darkness

The image shows the atomic resolved structure of a graphene nano ribbon on an AU(111) surface. It was synthesised in a bottom-up fashion on the surface from smaller precursor molecules. The ribbon is about 0.7nm wide and one atom layer thick. The position where two carbon atoms are replaced with boron atoms is easily identified by the change in contrast in the centre of the image.

Such, we reach a resolution to directly visualise the chemical structure of an individual molecule, orders of magnitude away from anything that could be resolved using purely optical methods.

Materials: Graphene Nanoribbon on Gold, Scanning Tunnelling Microscope with CO-functionalized tip.

Image taken by Niklas Friedrich