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Condensed-matter physics

Electrons in the looking glass

Nature volume 403, pages 489–491 (2000)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 15 June 2000

The scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) is a marvel to scientists and the interested public. Twenty years ago, who would have thought that we would ‘see’ individual atoms so directly? New science has flowed from this technology like water from a fire hose. After atoms, electrons were next to be imaged, although they are too light to stay put and be ‘photographed’. At best the images are blurred, but not just any old blur: the electrons are seen moving in atomic and molecular orbitals, in textbook fashion.

Electrons next made a surprising appearance on the condensed-matter physicist's turf, in the form of conduction electrons freely moving around on the surface of metals such as copper1,2. Not only that, but at low temperatures they showed off their true quantum nature by creating dramatic interference patterns that can only happen when waves come together, adding crest to crest (constructive interference), or crest to trough (destructive interference). The STM images that emerged from Donald Eigler's laboratory are now well known, earning the cover-page ‘triple crown’: the covers of Nature , Science and Physics Today1,2,3. Not surprisingly, the latest STM images from Eigler's group, reported on page 512 of this issue4, can again be found on the cover.

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Figure 1: Waves in an elliptical dish of mercury.

References

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  1. Departments of Physics and Chemistry, Lyman Laboratory, Harvard University, 17 Oxford Street , Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Eric Heller

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  1. Eric Heller
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Correspondence to Eric Heller.

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Heller, E. Electrons in the looking glass . Nature 403, 489–491 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35000681

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