Prof. Billinge Featured in Scientific American
12/23/2008
In nanotechnology, the position of a single atom can make all the difference—whether a material functions as a semiconductor or an insulator, whether it triggers a vital chemical process or stops it cold. The ability to define every atom in a nanoparticle precisely would permit full control of the properties and behavior of a nanomaterial. But deep-down atomic imaging techniques, such as electron microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy, are not enough for nanoengineering, because they do not provide the precise mathematical coordinates of every atom that nanotechnologists need.
“Beautiful pictures of nanostructures capture the imagination, but if a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a table, filled with accurate atomic coordinates, is worth 1,000 pictures,” says Simon Billinge, who studies what he has dubbed the nanostructure problem at Columbia University and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Billinge and his like-minded colleagues instead are looking to combine methods and use conventional techniques in novel ways.