![atom diagram atom diagram](https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/a1520199/800wm/A1520199-Atomic_structure.jpg)
“We hope to use the electron beam to basically move these dopants, so we could make a pyramid, or some defect complex, where we can state precisely where each atom sits,” Li says. Ultimately, the goal is to move multiple atoms in complex ways. The phosphorus atoms end up substituting for carbon atoms in parts of that pattern, thus altering the material’s electronic, optical, and other properties in ways that can be predicted if the positions of those atoms are known. In the team’s experiments, they primarily used phosphorus atoms, a commonly used dopant, in a sheet of graphene, a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern. “Like soccer, you’re always trying to move toward the goal.” “Like soccer, it’s not deterministic, but you can control the probabilities,” he says. “We want to use the beam to knock out atoms and essentially to play atomic soccer,” dribbling the atoms across the graphene field to their intended “goal” position, he says. The power of the very narrowly focused electron beam, about as wide as an atom, knocks an atom out of its position, and by selecting the exact angle of the beam, the researchers can determine where it is most likely to end up. While the positioning is essentially determined by probabilities and is not 100 percent accurate, the ability to determine the actual position makes it possible to select out only those that ended up in the right configuration. The same electron beam can be used for knocking an atom both out of one position and into another, and then “reading” the new position to verify that the atom ended up where it was meant to, Li says. The new system allows for exact positioning, he says. But that process is scattershot, Li explains, so there’s no way of controlling with atomic precision where those dopant atoms go. “This is an exciting new paradigm for atom manipulation,” Susi says.Ĭomputer chips are typically made by “doping” a silicon crystal with other atoms needed to confer specific electrical properties, thus creating “defects’ in the material - regions that do not preserve the perfectly orderly crystalline structure of the silicon. Also, it should be possible to have many electron beams working simultaneously on the same piece of material.” “That’s many orders of magnitude faster than we can manipulate them now with mechanical probes.
![atom diagram atom diagram](http://www.pearltrees.com/s/background/image/c6/59/c6591a41f50be5f54d0bbec28e4be537.jpg)
Using electronic controls and artificial intelligence, “we think we can eventually manipulate atoms at microsecond timescales,” Li says. That makes the process potentially much faster, and thus could lead to practical applications. The new process manipulates atoms using a relativistic electron beam in a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), so it can be fully electronically controlled by magnetic lenses and requires no mechanical moving parts. While others have previously manipulated the positions of individual atoms, even creating a neat circle of atoms on a surface, that process involved picking up individual atoms on the needle-like tip of a scanning tunneling microscope and then dropping them in position, a relatively slow mechanical process. “The goal is to control one to a few hundred atoms, to control their positions, control their charge state, and control their electronic and nuclear spin states,” he says. But in the new research, those tools are being used to control processes that are yet an order of magnitude smaller.
![atom diagram atom diagram](http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/c-atom_e.gif)
“We’re using a lot of the tools of nanotechnology,” explains Li, who holds a joint appointment in materials science and engineering. The advance is described today in the journal Science Advances, in a paper by MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering Ju Li, graduate student Cong Su, Professor Toma Susi of the University of Vienna, and 13 others at MIT, the University of Vienna, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and in China, Ecuador, and Denmark. The finding could ultimately lead to new ways of making quantum computing devices or sensors, and usher in a new age of “atomic engineering,” they say. Now, scientists at MIT, the University of Vienna, and several other institutions have taken a step in that direction, developing a method that can reposition atoms with a highly focused electron beam and control their exact location and bonding orientation. The ultimate degree of control for engineering would be the ability to create and manipulate materials at the most basic level, fabricating devices atom by atom with precise control.