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While your typical X-ray might involve a lead apron draped on you while your dentist snaps photos of your mouth, the process can actually snapshot objects much, much smaller and more precise than just your molars. Doing so allows scientists to study the very building blocks that make up all matter in the universe—and could even lead to better hardware for technology in the future.
For a long time, though, there was a limit to what scientists could X-ray. The smallest objects X-rays could observe were on the scale of attograms (or 10,000 atoms or more). That record has now been surpassed after a multi-university team has successfully taken an X-ray of a single atom.
In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the authors used a new type of X-ray instrument to detect the incredibly minute signals of just one atom. The authors say this achievement opens the opportunity for future X-ray analyses for atomic and molecular structures in general, which could allow scientists to manipulate atoms in different materials to tailor for specific technologies.