An image of a single atom of the metal strontium suspended in electric fields has won the 2018 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council science photography competition.
David Nadlinger‘s photo, Single Atom In An Ion Trap, was captured through the window of a vacuum chamber in an Oxford University laboratory, using an ordinary digital camera on a long exposure shot.
Two metal electrodes, two millimetres apart, held the strontium almost motionless in a strong electric field as it was illuminated with a blue-violet-coloured laser.
“The idea of being able to see a single atom with the naked eye had struck me as a wonderfully direct and visceral bridge between the minuscule quantum world and our macroscopic reality,” Nadlinger said.
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