"Copper plate:
The scientists used copper 111 as the surface of the animation — the same material they used 10 years ago when they built the first computer that performed digital computation operations.
Carbon monoxide (CO): ok
The scientists chose carbon monoxide molecules to move around the plate. Carbon monoxide has one carbon atom and one oxygen atom, stacked on top of each other."
One thing I don't understand with that quote: it seems to imply this video was made only ten years after "first computer that performed digital computation operations". Is this a typo in the original or are they referring to something else?
Smoothness is likely due to the grounding of the backplate.
If anything I would posture that they’ve filmed the backplate and the A
atoms are the shadow from the scattering of the electrons that didn’t hit the backplate.
"Copper plate: The scientists used copper 111 as the surface of the animation — the same material they used 10 years ago when they built the first computer that performed digital computation operations. Carbon monoxide (CO): ok The scientists chose carbon monoxide molecules to move around the plate. Carbon monoxide has one carbon atom and one oxygen atom, stacked on top of each other."
http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/madewithatoms.shtml#fbi...
I assume focus / depth of field is why the surface looks smooth. Or whatever the equivalent of that is for a scanning/tunnelling microscope.