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Quantum Architecture
manipulated atoms built this structureFrom the artists at IBM, we have this CSI, dubbed the Stadium Corral. The "brush" used to make this image is the scanning tunneling microscope, a device that not only allows imaging at the scale of the atom, but permits the manipulation of individual atoms to build structures like these. The medium in this case is iron on copper, with iron atoms positioned to create a stadium-shaped corral. The idea, according to the folks at IBM, was to corral electrons in an effort to observe "quantum chaos." But that end wasn't achieved because the electrons didn't bounce around in the corral before escaping. The corral, they say, was apparently leaky.

       
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Photo credit: Copyright © IBM.