Building the tree is not all that difficult

Dec 24, 2014 19:50 GMT  ·  By

Measuring the smallest Christmas tree might seem like a difficult job and that's true to some degree. Professor Philip Moriarty shows us how you can make a Christmas tree from just 42 individual atoms.

Philip Moriarty is a professor of Physics at the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham. He says that one of his research interests is nanometre scale science with a particular focus on single atom and molecule manipulation using scanning probes, so this atom-size tree design is actually right up his alley.

You might also notice that the tree is made up of 42 individual atoms and that is definitely not a coincidence. If you remember correctly from the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," the number 42 is "the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything." Or at least this is what Douglas Adams, the author of the book, says.

How hard is it to make a tree from individual atoms?

If you ignore the difficult process of setting up a nanolithography machine that is capable of displacing hydrogen atoms from a silicon surface by using a pulse of electrons, then the rest is pretty simple. All you have to do is set up the pattern and the machine does the rest. In fact, it would have been much easier to make the tree even smaller, but then it wouldn't have contained the number 42.

So, you're wondering what this magical nanolithography process is all about. According to an entry on nanolithography.gatech.edu, the machine has "a spot beam, vector scan, a step and repeat stage, and is capable of varying the beam size widely. Its dynamic correction system eliminates defocusing resulting from beam deflection. The system is versatile in exploring new frontiers in nanotechnology, including basic research of electronic devices, optical elements, and advanced optical and nano-imprint lithography masks, to name a few."

The fact that humans are now able to manipulate matter at the atomic level is an extraordinary feat in itself, so making a tree using this procedure is all the more impressive. Professor Philip Moriarty has been featured in numerous videos on YouTube, on the Sixty Symbols channel. He helps people understand some of the most complicated aspects of physics, but he also has some very interesting interests, like disproving the workings on the portal gun in the Portal games.

You can find many more interesting videos published by Sixty Symbols, on a number of very interesting subjects.

Nanolithography (7 Images)

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