A team of scientists at IBM Research used a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to generate and record a stop-motion animation composed of individual carbon monoxide atoms molecules. A conventional light microscope cannot be used to image individual atoms since they are much smaller than the wavelength of light and therefore unresolvable. An STM uses an extremely sharp metal needle to scan over a surface while recording changes in electrical current, which indicates the presence of an atom. The same metal needle can be used to push around individual atoms, which is how each frame of the animation was created. The resulting atoms in the animation are magnified over 100 million times their original size.
Source: http://ibmresearchnews.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-to-move-atom.html (IBM Research)
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