Source: David Nadlinger / University of Oxford
This image, a tiny pale blue dot, could be pretty underwhelming if you didn’t know what the subject actually was.
In fact, it’s a single strontium atom, and despite being just 215 billionths of a millimeter across, Oxford University PhD student David Nadlinger has managed to capture it on film – with the help of some laser illumination.
His efforts with a standard DSLR camera earned his picture, titled: “Single Atom in an Ion Trap” a prestigious UK science photography prize.
Trapping atoms is something Nadlinger does every day as part of his research into quantum computing, but it’s a worldwide first to catch one – on film.
