50,000,000x Magnification

Hey everybody! comments, corrections, and FAQs here: 1) Go check out reddit.com/r/trytryagain, there are a bunch of posts now and it's great! 2) Thanks to Kunal and Aidan for previewing this video and making sure I wasn't too egregiously wrong in my explanations! Kunal wanted to add that for TEM and STEM imaging, the vast majority of the time the sample isn't pointed "at the beam" - normally it's at a wonky angle to produce very specific diffraction effects. This lets us do some cool things, like look at strain fields from dislocations, but I didn't do that in this video. Also because of diffraction effects, by the time you've zoomed all the way into atoms, the "shadow" analogy is actually pretty terrible, and image formation is complicated (hence switching to STEM). Aidan had some comments on STEM-vs-TEM, notably that despite the beam paths being completely different, they actually DO interact with the sample in largely the same way and produce similar contrast when you aren't at atomic resolution. When I said they were mechanistically completely different, that was accurate from the perspective of the mechanics of the microscope being different, but the beam-sample interaction physics is EXTREMELY similar. 2 (TLDR) I swept a lot under the rug in order to focus exclusively on atomic-resolution microscopy - Diffraction and strain contrast microscopy is arguably a lot more important, certainly more common, but also a LOT more complicated. 3) I've got t-shirts for sale! If you ever wanted to have a t-shirt with a giant red flaming alpha on the front - NOW YOU CAN… alphaphoenix.creator-spring.com/ 4) If anybody's super-curious, here's the paper we published: doi: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.cgd.2c00188 unfortunately it's not on SciHub yet, but if you check back in a couple days I should have a link to the manuscript available! 5) I’ve had a lot of people ask about the drift - yes the sample is rigidly mounted, and yes the beam keeps pointing in the same direction, but when was the last time you tried to hold something so still that it didn’t move by an atom? Thermal expansion and contraction is actually a huge problem - if the sample stage is warmer than the microscope, when you load it in, the arm that holds the sample is going to cool down and contract - super slowly - for a couple hours minimum, and that’s enough to ruin long exposure pictures with crazy rolling shutter artifacts. 6) a few people have mentioned the mask and while I think most of these commenters are just being irritants because they can, it actually brings up a very interesting point about these scopes. To reduce noise, vibration, and changes in temperature, the room that houses this microscope is designed to have almost zero air changeover. This is fantastic for consistent microscope operation, but real bad to leave an airborne virus in a room and have somebody else walk into the same air a few minutes later. 7) I did some math and changed the title from 10000000x magnification to 50000000x magnification (eh - same order of magnitude). magnification is very poorly-defined because it technically depends on the viewing screen. There IS a "standard" display size from when all TEM images were published on paper in the same journal format, but I don't remember the size, so I took one of the shots where I was focusing with a field of view of a little over 4 nanometers and assumed it was 8-10 inches tall on the monitor, then rounded nicely. according to the manufacturer's site, the magnification goes up to 230M - again, not sure what the intended display size is. I wonder if they ship computer monitors with the microscope??? 8) I'm sure there are more things wrong or fuzzy so complain away and I'll add notes here!

It’s insane that this kind of technology can be used and showcased to potentially millions of people all by one guy.

That is an absolutely stunning machine, and an equally stunning capture! Well done!

I remember growing up not too long ago where in science classes we were told that an atom has never been photographed and now it’s so exciting that we finally have

your physical examples are amazing and brilliantly thought out, especially using the gimbal and laser to explain scanning. That looks like it took an eternity to set up, film, and edit, but it was extremely effective at explaining the principal

This is awesome.

This is amazing. Is there not an ability to save all values to “re-find” a specific spot on a specific orientation of the sample or is it way more complicated than that?

please never lose your curiosity - such people like you move humanity forward and give us hope in the future 👍

wow, the green graphic overlay describing the focus/process was really a eureka moment for me. thanks so much for being so creative in describing an insane process we take for granted.

What a spectacular video. I recall Ben Krasnow once commenting about how capturing the initial joy and wonder of scientific discovery in a YouTube video is extremely difficult, but you’ve done a wonderful job of that here, as well as giving excellent explanations as to how it all works. Well done

I used to think I was pretty smart. Then I realized that someone had to create this machine and that knocked me down a few pegs. This guy did a great job dumbing it down for me and is a natural educator.

Once upon a time, December 1989, I was sitting on a transPacific flight chatting with an engineer discussing a possible gimbal design for that sample holder. Very cool to see a one in real life rather than sketched on paper, and fantasies of verbal imagination!

One of the most incredible machines ever. The engineering involved to achieve this is unprecedented. Wonderful video and explanation.

I cant even comprehend how small that sample is, it must be so finnicky to move

Extremely cool to see the entire process. I've seen the output images in papers and science reporting, but it's refreshing to see the entire (cumbersome) process leading up to such results.

I worked for the DOE for a few years and ran an EB (electron beam) welder. Very different but but this video brought back some memories. Also my uncle ran an Electron Microscope and analyzed samples from Ground Zero for asbestos. Unfortunately he passed a few years ago from mesothelioma but he would take us kids to his lab and show us all kinds of cool things. My fav part was playing with liquid Nitrogen lol. Anyways thanks for bringing back such great memories ❤

The process is amazing. But equally impressive to the subject matter is that I was able to completely follow "Your Presentation" and you made it interesting! I have no background in this and was in fact on YT looking for motorcycle videos when I got distracted by this. Stellar job of explaining such advanced process in understandable everyday language!

Wow... at 70 years old, I'm absolutely and totally off the scale awestruck. Thank you so much for all of the time and effort you did in producing this video and the excellent explanations.

"I'm going to be looking for a specific thing, and I'm not sure I'll find it, but I'll still learn something" is the most sciencest science thing any scientist has ever scienced.

Damn. I have trouble sometimes with small print, and here you are not reading the print, but instead looking at home the ink melds into the paper (so to speak). I'm glad people like you exist because it pushes our understanding what is going on in the super small environment of atoms. Hats off to you..