Image Recognition
Chemists have long used abstract shapes to describe electron orbitals in theory, which are crucial to how atoms and molecules behave. In the image, the iron atom has a squarish shape, while cobalt is brighter with more distinct lobes in its electron orbitals. The researchers, reporting in the journal Nature Communications, found it was possible to distinguish electron orbital structures of atoms within a molecule using an atomic force microscope. “The difference of a single electron between these two elements provides us with an opportunity to delve deeper into the distinctions arising from subtle variations in electron occupancy within electron orbitals,” Yao said. At that distance, the electron orbitals of the two atoms, the probe, and its target, begin to overlap.