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First-ever high-resolution images of a molecule as it breaks and reforms chemical bonds

When Felix Fischer of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) set out to develop nanostructures made of graphene using a new, controlled approach to chemical reactions, the first result was a surprise: spectacular images of individual carbon atoms and the bonds between them.

"We weren't thinking about making beautiful images; the reactions themselves were the goal," says Fischer, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division (MSD) and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. "But to really see what was happening at the single-atom level we had to use a uniquely sensitive atomic force microscope in Michael Crommie's laboratory." Crommie is an MSD scientist and a professor of physics at UC Berkeley.

Thats pretty damn cool. I'd like to see an image of benzene :O

Those things are benzene rings bro...

Let me clarify, I'd like to see a higher quality image of benzene.

Guess we have different definitions of high definition science community ...

I see what you did there.