The Sound of An Atom Has Been Captured (IMAGE)

Chalmers University of Technology

The Sound of An Atom Has Been Captured

Caption

On the right, an artificial atom generates sound waves consisting of ripples on the surface of a solid. The sound, known as a surface acoustic wave (SAW) is picked up on the left by a "microphone" composed of interlaced metal fingers. According to theory, the sound consists of a stream of quantum particles, the weakest whisper physically possible. The illustration is not to scale.

Credit

Philip Krantz, Krantz NanoArt

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