What do atoms under a microscope look like?

Question

is it possible to see an individual atom?

i'll rephrase that, what i meant to ask was, are there microscopes powerful enough that can actually see individual atoms? Cause, electron microscopes can see tiny things, like the organelles in cells, but can it see an atom?

Answer 1

The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a non-optical microscope that scans an electrical probe over a surface to be imaged to detect a weak electric current flowing between the tip and the surface. The STM (not to be confused with the scanning electron microscope) was invented in 1981 by Calvin Quate, Professor E Meritus of Stanford, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer of IBM's Zurich Lab in Zurich, Switzerland. Although initially greeted with some scepticism by materials scientists, the invention garnered the two a Nobel Prize in Physics (1986). The STM allows scientists to visualize regions of high electron density and hence infer the position of individual atoms and molecules on the surface of a lattice. Previous methods required arduous study of diffraction patterns and required interpretation to obtain spatial lattice structures. The STM is capable of higher resolution than its somewhat newer cousin, the atomic force microscope (AFM). Both the STM and the AFM fall under the class of scanning probe microscopes.

The STM can obtain images of conductive surfaces at an atomic scale 2 × 10−10 m or 0.2 nanometer, and also can be used to manipulate individual atoms, trigger chemical reactions, or reversibly produce ions by removing or adding individual electrons from atoms or molecules

Answer 2

Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEM) are able to image individual atoms but only in ideal circumstances. A very powerful instrument, with careful tuning and skilled use can see individual atoms on some, ideal samples.

One example is a change in crystal plane with different networks of atoms.

To my knowledge no Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is powerful directly image individual atoms, however it may be possible to calculate or infer their positions from SEM images.

Answer 3

An optical microscope can not be used for looking at atoms.
There are other techniques but it is extremely difficult. I remember seeing a few years back a fuzzy picture of uranium atoms. Their "boundaries" could be seen.

Answer 4

Lumps. I saw a picture that was taken of nickel atoms that had been aligned to read I B M. They were lumps on a smooth plane of a much denser element which I cannot remember right now.
The image was taken with a scanning microscope.

Answer 5

You would need an electron microscope rather than an optical one.

They are solid lumps surrounded by empty space.

Answer 6

Atoms!!!