50,000,000x Magnification 

Hey everybody! comments, corrections, and FAQs here: 1) Go check out reddit.com/r/trytryagain, there are a bunch of posts now and it's great! 2) Thanks to Kunal and Aidan for previewing this video and making sure I wasn't too egregiously wrong in my explanations! Kunal wanted to add that for TEM and STEM imaging, the vast majority of the time the sample isn't pointed "at the beam" - normally it's at a wonky angle to produce very specific diffraction effects. This lets us do some cool things, like look at strain fields from dislocations, but I didn't do that in this video. Also because of diffraction effects, by the time you've zoomed all the way into atoms, the "shadow" analogy is actually pretty terrible, and image formation is complicated (hence switching to STEM). Aidan had some comments on STEM-vs-TEM, notably that despite the beam paths being completely different, they actually DO interact with the sample in largely the same way and produce similar contrast when you aren't at atomic resolution. When I said they were mechanistically completely different, that was accurate from the perspective of the mechanics of the microscope being different, but the beam-sample interaction physics is EXTREMELY similar. 2 (TLDR) I swept a lot under the rug in order to focus exclusively on atomic-resolution microscopy - Diffraction and strain contrast microscopy is arguably a lot more important, certainly more common, but also a LOT more complicated. 3) I've got t-shirts for sale! If you ever wanted to have a t-shirt with a giant red flaming alpha on the front - NOW YOU CAN… alphaphoenix.creator-spring.com/ 4) If anybody's super-curious, here's the paper we published: doi: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.cgd.2c00188 unfortunately it's not on SciHub yet, but if you check back in a couple days I should have a link to the manuscript available! 5) I’ve had a lot of people ask about the drift - yes the sample is rigidly mounted, and yes the beam keeps pointing in the same direction, but when was the last time you tried to hold something so still that it didn’t move by an atom? Thermal expansion and contraction is actually a huge problem - if the sample stage is warmer than the microscope, when you load it in, the arm that holds the sample is going to cool down and contract - super slowly - for a couple hours minimum, and that’s enough to ruin long exposure pictures with crazy rolling shutter artifacts. 6) a few people have mentioned the mask and while I think most of these commenters are just being irritants because they can, it actually brings up a very interesting point about these scopes. To reduce noise, vibration, and changes in temperature, the room that houses this microscope is designed to have almost zero air changeover. This is fantastic for consistent microscope operation, but real bad to leave an airborne virus in a room and have somebody else walk into the same air a few minutes later. 7) I did some math and changed the title from 10000000x magnification to 50000000x magnification (eh - same order of magnitude). magnification is very poorly-defined because it technically depends on the viewing screen. There IS a "standard" display size from when all TEM images were published on paper in the same journal format, but I don't remember the size, so I took one of the shots where I was focusing with a field of view of a little over 4 nanometers and assumed it was 8-10 inches tall on the monitor, then rounded nicely. according to the manufacturer's site, the magnification goes up to 230M - again, not sure what the intended display size is. I wonder if they ship computer monitors with the microscope??? 8) I'm sure there are more things wrong or fuzzy so complain away and I'll add notes here!

It’s insane that this kind of technology can be used and showcased to potentially millions of people all by one guy.

That is an absolutely stunning machine, and an equally stunning capture! Well done!

please never lose your curiosity - such people like you move humanity forward and give us hope in the future 👍

your physical examples are amazing and brilliantly thought out, especially using the gimbal and laser to explain scanning. That looks like it took an eternity to set up, film, and edit, but it was extremely effective at explaining the principal

This is amazing. Is there not an ability to save all values to “re-find” a specific spot on a specific orientation of the sample or is it way more complicated than that?

This is awesome.

Once upon a time, December 1989, I was sitting on a transPacific flight chatting with an engineer discussing a possible gimbal design for that sample holder. Very cool to see a one in real life rather than sketched on paper, and fantasies of verbal imagination!

wow, the green graphic overlay describing the focus/process was really a eureka moment for me. thanks so much for being so creative in describing an insane process we take for granted.

"I'm going to be looking for a specific thing, and I'm not sure I'll find it, but I'll still learn something" is the most sciencest science thing any scientist has ever scienced.

What a spectacular video. I recall Ben Krasnow once commenting about how capturing the initial joy and wonder of scientific discovery in a RU-vid video is extremely difficult, but you’ve done a wonderful job of that here, as well as giving excellent explanations as to how it all works. Well done

I worked for the DOE for a few years and ran an EB (electron beam) welder. Very different but but this video brought back some memories. Also my uncle ran an Electron Microscope and analyzed samples from Ground Zero for asbestos. Unfortunately he passed a few years ago from mesothelioma but he would take us kids to his lab and show us all kinds of cool things. My fav part was playing with liquid Nitrogen lol. Anyways thanks for bringing back such great memories ❤

The process is amazing. But equally impressive to the subject matter is that I was able to completely follow "Your Presentation" and you made it interesting! I have no background in this and was in fact on YT looking for motorcycle videos when I got distracted by this. Stellar job of explaining such advanced process in understandable everyday language!

I cant even comprehend how small that sample is, it must be so finnicky to move

I used to think I was pretty smart. Then I realized that someone had to create this machine and that knocked me down a few pegs. This guy did a great job dumbing it down for me and is a natural educator.

One of the most incredible machines ever. The engineering involved to achieve this is unprecedented. Wonderful video and explanation.

Damn. I have trouble sometimes with small print, and here you are not reading the print, but instead looking at home the ink melds into the paper (so to speak). I'm glad people like you exist because it pushes our understanding what is going on in the super small environment of atoms. Hats off to you..

Extremely cool to see the entire process. I've seen the output images in papers and science reporting, but it's refreshing to see the entire (cumbersome) process leading up to such results.

Something that always blows my mind is the engineering that goes in to different scientific instrumentation. Those instruments are the culmination of thousands upon thousands of hours of work from many different people. Years of work before you can even start to do your work.

That’s incredibly badass. I knew advanced electron microscopes were around, but showing us the magnetic lenses, the impressive sample aperture, well... Really great job explaining each step with enough detail to be appreciated! It’s incredible engineering, ambitious objectives, and a mind-blowing achievement, and you did a great job conveying a ton of info in a brief time. Thanks for the video, and congratulations on finding the phenomenon! And a paper! Nice!

I remember growing up not too long ago where in science classes we were told that an atom has never been photographed and now it’s so exciting that we finally have

Wow... at 70 years old, I'm absolutely and totally off the scale awestruck. Thank you so much for all of the time and effort you did in producing this video and the excellent explanations.

Neat stuff! I can't believe you can make the equivalent of an optical quality lens with magnetic fields. I'd be interested to learn more about how those rings are tuned and controlled.

This was so fantastically amazing. Thanks for sharing your work through this incredibly tedious process!!

Marvelous! Absolutely amazing to see a macro of what's going on down there in the nM range.

To think that 2-3 decades ago, most of the public would never even know about machines like this, let alone see them work their magic.

the way you overlap the results you see from theoretical explanation to the real world almost seamlessly really should be what every academic institution should strive to do when teaching these concepts. I've always loved being able to see an explanation like this and I strive to demonstrate it whenever I teach as well. It strikes an incredible chord between seeing tangible results to what seem like abstract concepts at first, as well as imparting a true sense of wonder for the universe. If this doesn't get you excited about science then nothing will! Stunning video as always

Just came across this bro.. amazing!! Love the passion and work done to teach your knowledge and understanding!

You’re a really great and thorough teacher who explains things so we can understand if we have no knowledge. Thank you for this video

This man just tricked us into watching him research for a paper. But I'm all for it. It still blows my mind that this technology exists.

I think you are one of the few people who actually shows the entire process when you do a video like this, and not just the flashy parts.

I really like your enthusiasm and how you explain everything so clearly. You make it really interesting and easy to understand. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us! Thank you 😊

can we use this to see viruses?

You've taken me back to when I was doing my PhD! Hours upon hours upon hours on an SEM, trying to find particular weld defects or characterising fracture surfaces (I think I got a little triggered when you mentioned "stig", lol). You really communicated well that elation you get when, after god knows how many hours and how many samples, you find exactly the feature you were looking for, and you know you've gone from something purely theoretical to something with actual evidence behind it. I also got super pumped when that happened!

I work at Thermo Fisher Scientific (the maker of this particular microscope) on these microscopes; including the Talos and the Velox application as seen in the video. It's great to see our microcopes used in the wild like this.

So cool. I love how it somewhat looks like yarn or fabric. The fabric of all things.

A Awesome video. Thank you for all of your hard work and patience.

PhD candidate in chemistry on his last year here. I have a couple years experience of electron imaging under my belt, and I gotta say, you did a fantastic job with this video! It's always insanely difficult to get people to appreciate the work behind these kinds of images unless they themselves have done some sort of work with sensitive instruments like these. Holding your hands up off the table both in optimistic superstition and to give yourself the best chance not to slightly bump the table and throw the image off, the "still a lil bit of stig" comment after a WHOLE lot of focusing, using VESTA to visually explain concepts, using Velox as opposed to Esprit (that's a personal thing - I hate Esprit). It's so clear that you have done a lot of work in this field, yet you still show those little OCD tendencies that microscopists (or any scientist on this small a scale) usually do and should have. It shows you're still learning and want to improve. It shows you wanted this video to be as comprehensive as possible, and I can only imagine the time it took to edit it all together, as well as the risk you took of filming live research when you could've come up empty-handed. Kudos to you; please take my subscribe.

I like how the decorators thought that, after hours of staring at grainy grey grid like things, what you really want to see when you look away... is more grey grid like things.

Thank you so much for filming and sharing this!!

I really enjoyed this! Thanks for sharing your work and how it's achieved.

What an absolute joy to be able to come along for the ride with you on this journey! A sort of digital bring your kids to work day..😂

17:16 this is truly amazing… I never thought I’d live to see the day where atoms could be visualized in their natural form.

Thank you this was amazing. During the nineties I did some fatigue tests on helicopter gearboxes and took the failed components to an electron microscope in Johannesburg where they counted the fatigue striation that we used to determine the fatigue life of the components. But this is on another level.

Glad we have smart people like you working on stuff like this. I found it interesting and a welcomed escape back to my EE days talking about electron flow at this level. last time I thought that deeply about anything. :)

I do astrophotography and I share you’re amazement that we have the technology to see the very large/far away and the very small. It’s like prying secrets out of reality that we humans aren’t supposed to see.

I feel like this is one of those fields of study where you can get so lost in what you're doing that you pay little mind to what you're *actually* doing. This is to say, doing all the focusing and imaging is a tedious task that requires a bunch of effort and focus, which just serves to distract from the fact that what's happening in a more literal sense is that a car-sized machine is being used to examine features on an object so incomprehensibly tiny. What you're doing is tantamount to witchcraft, with the limitations of the machine not only being down to quality, but also due to butting up against the very physical laws of the universe. This is all to say that this is one of those things that the more you describe it, the crazier it gets. But, somehow, this insanity is so normalized that you can say "Look! Atoms!" without losing your head.

Very very well done. Every step was explained multiple ways which allows basically anyone watching this video….to at least mildly grasp how that thing works. Awesome video

Hey, love your videos! As a microscopy guy, I was impressed with how well an electrical engineer can understand optics!! ;) Notice the key to getting a well-formed image on your screen is that the position of the ball bearings is a little bit /farther/ than the focal length of the lens, but less than double that distance, as anything beyond 2f would de-magnify, rather than magnify your image. The screen will only have a sharp image projected on it in one location with a fixed position of the ball bearings. Moving the screen back farther will only blur the image. You can change the magnification by bringing L2 closer (increase magnification) or move L2 farther away (reduce magnification) and repositioning the screen accordingly (noting you cannot bring the bearings closer to the lens than its focal length since no image will be formed at all past this point). The flashlight and pinhole are now serving merely as illumination of the ball bearings and are no longer taking part in image formation. They set up you ideal "object" to be imaged, which is light passing through gaps in the ball bearings, and L2 is just projecting an image of that onto your screen! You can confirm this by moving lens 1 out of position so the light is no longer perfectly collimated and you'll still see the sharp edges of the ball bearings at your screen just as before, only now you will probably notice the image gets darker towards the edges. Similarly, you could replace L1 with another lens of a different focal length and the size and quality of your resulting image will be identical because L2 does all the work. That narrowing of the beam of light you see is happening right at L2's focal length (assuming L1 is collimating perfectly). This is the image of the pinhole created by the combination of L1 and L2. L1 collimates the light, and L2 focuses it again, creating an image at a distance equal to its focal length. Many microscopes use collimation in their imaging and illumination systems, because the part of the optical path between L1 and L2 can be made as long or short as you like and it doesn't change the outcome very much. You can also stick all sorts of filters or optics in the light path here without affecting the image quality, which cannot be said for putting optics in a converging or diverging path.

This makes me think about those who had none of the info we had now. No hypothesis, no images, and no life study from peers, but they still figured the shapes and functions out. They had theoretical models created and started decoding the mystery of something no one really even knew existed. Mind-blowing.

18:30 I relate to this thought so much! After spending thousands of hours in front of an SEM looking at mostly features within the 10nm-150um range, I feel as if you just pulled back the curtain to what Ive always wanted to experience - to see actual atoms. This was truly delightful to see!

Thank You So Much for this practical and insightful video

Hey it's so cool that you make such videos about real research. People often seem to think that going the heart of the research would be too boring for people and so they keep it too superficial. When in fact you just have to explain a few more steps. I hope I will be able to do the same about my work.

absolutely mind-blowing. 11:46 also tripped me out when I first saw his hands flickering

I work with a TEM at a local hospital to take micrographs of tissue for the pathology department. All of electron microscopy is extremely complex and delicate. I have had samples literally just fly away because of a change in room pressure from opening a door. We use microtomy to get the samples to the appropriate thickness and use heavy metal stain to render a beautiful live image.

Optics is one field of physical science that my brain has trouble understanding, but your explanations made perfect sense. As someone that has studied biochemistry extensively, it is astonishing to visualize the chemistry on an atomic level in real life. I could never do what you do, but thank you for being so good at what you do so that I could experience this.

My friend, this is probably the coolest video I have ever seen. Thank you so much for taking us on this journey, and congratulations on your discovery!

As a SEM operator, i admire your work in this video. And the joy that you feel when going from the large shot to fine details never gets old :-)

Awesome stuff! When I read the title I thought we'd be seeing AFM or Scanning *Tunneling* EM, but I'd never heard of this method, cool! I actually do molecular bio, so our sample preparation is hilariously different from a materials scientist's, but still really nice to know at least a basis of what you're explaining 💪

Yes, the explamation makes sense; and it is a very interesting video. Thank you, for showing us this marvelous aparatus

Mate, you have an astonishing ability of explaining and demonstrating complex concepts really well. Uniquely, you don't dumb it down like many others, and yet the information you convey is packaged rather simply. Thank you :)

I started working with my schools TEM and SEM recently for my undergrad research. It has been an incredible experience, and I just love working with these machines! Since I started my research, I’ve never felt more excited about science and technology than I am now!

This is so fascinating! Great job explaining such an insane technology in so simply!

As a student majoring mechanical engineering in South Korea, this video inspired me a lot. I really enjoyed the video. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Due to unfortunate circumstances beyond my control, I never finished high school. The way you explained what you were doing is so incredible, that even I, tottaly understood it. Amazing!

I did some electron microscopy back when I was at college. We has a TEM, SEM and STEM but I only ever used the scanning electron microscope. Pretty much everything sees atoms. Very few things can resolve atomic scale though.

Excellent job at explaining the mechanics involved to us lay people! Well done!

You're a truly excellent educator, I'm not a materials scientist, but I am involved with the field of machine/artificial cognition (not "AI") . If we had even half the level of quality of this content in our field, I truly believe we'd be significantly further ahead in bringing people into what we're doing as well. Massive well done, thank you so much for sharing your expertise so freely & in such an accessible form here!!

Loved your real-world explanation examples, thank you for taking the time to construct them. Made the rest relatively easy to understand. Fascinating equipment and process. Your work takes a lot of patience. Thanks again.

It looks so unreal, incredible! I am constantly zooming in and out mentally from different images magnifications you showed.

An excellent presentation, i found it informative and entertaining. thankyou.

Your table setup with the lenses was incredible. Really, really appreciate the demonstration. Thank you! Easy sub!

It's not often I watch a 20 minute video all the way through, but I was literally leaning forward on the edge of my seat, rooting for you to find what you were looking for so I could see it too. Thanks for posting this, and I'm glad I just found your channel. Existence is fascinating!

What a great video, brother. I used an SEM in grad school for carbon nanotube research, and I can appreciate your frustrations!! I can also appreciate a successful image. There aren’t words that can describe the feeling of getting the image you’re after. You did a great job describing everything. I love this stuff!!

I am waiting to for the 'reaction video of your advisor when you show the result' :) It is a good video to show people how science operates, that is a lot of repeating, re-checking and finally you found the needle in the haystack! Very nice work. Congrats !

I design electron microscope rooms for low noise and vibration and this video gives me a deeper appreciation for these amazing instruments and the scientists who use them!

Inspiring to see an young guy 2022 talking "science" at this deeper level ! Please do more. I saw your video with your dad's observatory few years ago. It made be built one for myself.

I've never seen how a scanning microscope works, and with this video you ABSOLUTELY nailed how to explain it! This is one of the best and most enthusiastic (actual) science videos I've ever seen! Kudos!

I love how when the first pics of atoms came out everyone was super stoked just like when the first black hole photos came out, but now it just seems like a tedious desk job. Still amazing, but the march of progress seems to humble even the most amazing things.

i went to school with a guy who worked on one of the early imaging devices that measured the deflection of particles away from a sample. the way he described it, was that it was a sample placed in a circular chamber with a particle gun pointing at it. from what i remember, he was shooting mostly electrons, but they could also shoot alpha, beta, and gamma radiation at the sample. then they had a detection medium that was wrapped around the chamber that housed the sample. they had different methods for detecting different particles, but in general it was a medium that emitted photons when it was excited with electrons. then on the other side of that, they had digital photon detectors all over the place. all put together, it allowed him to take digital data sets of where electrons where going after they were being deflected by a sample. he was a really fascinating guy, and an absolute genius. he was older and had started basically collecting degrees and was working on a masters in CS. its one thing to understand the theory of measuring stuff like this, but to physically build the equipment and take the measurement is wild

6:49 the concept of clarity - of the images- was explained by others in other videos. But the difference here is the example you showed with those small balls that mimic atoms and how the image was blurred and later how you got a clear image . Now it makes sense. YOU have done a feynmann job of explaining things in an interesting manner. Tq

Thank you so much for doing this. I wanted to do science when I was a kid, but I missed my chance. I never thought I would have the opportunity to see anything like this, and you gave me a glimpse into what it feels like to be a scientist. Thank you again so much.

I have been subbed to so many channels before they get popular. It's always such a pleasure when the channel's content revolves around stem subjects. This channel is phenomenal! I look forward to enjoying the content and seeing the channel climb.

7:36 One of my favourite equations in physics - we used to call it "If I do I die" to memorise it (1/f = 1/do + 1/di) took only one round of giggle in the lab to sink it in :) Awesome stuff!

awesome explication!!! congrats!!

ive been patiently waiting to stumble across a real world example of one of those ruby bearings in use. cool thanks

2:25 I have never seen a more perfect demonstration of scale.

Could you go into more detail how the refraction patterns help you focus the sample and how they work? I think that could be another great video.

Thank you for making a true educational video. There is so much garbage on RU-vid I give up on it all the time. Your a thoughtful educator

really appreciate how you explain things..some youtubers dont even clearly do that

Fantastic video! Your demonstrations made this a highly educational and accessible video, even if they are imperfect representations. It makes me happy that your institution is willing to let you publish videos created using their facilities. Another benefit is video evidence to your supervisor that you were hard at work all that time. I feel your pain at spending hours fiddling with settings in front of a microscope, although my own experience was with fluorescent microscopy and molecular genetics. I still remember my excitement the first time I was able to see the expression of two different proteins at the 8 cell stage during nematode development using GFP and RFP tagged proteins.

This video is awesome! I remember watching someone do some TEM work for us as for a labs project during my chem degree. Seeing it done properly with you explaining it was poggers

That is awesome! And super-congrats to you !!

This makes me wish I hadn't struggled so much in high school. I love lab work. I've done some stuff similar to it in the past, but not in scientific fields. I love the fiddling, the rote work, the process optimisation. The note taking. Its fascinating and just fits the way my brain works. But I was a disaster in high school and its basically too late for me to go to college. And while I adore the work I'd be far too indecisive to pick a subject to study.

Everything you explained made so much sense, I love it. You did a great job making this video. I hope everyone appreciates it as much as I do.

Really well presented with such infectious enthusiasm and just enough detail so that I feel I know what you're doing well done!

Absolutely fascinating to see an actual picture of the building blocks of our world, it really puts things in perspective when you realize that no matter how different everything in this world may look, when we break it down and look deep enough everything is made of these building blocks. Awesome video my friend, also you have amazing patience lol, I get frustrated when it takes more than 10 seconds for my phone to focus on something I'm trying to photograph, I can't imagine having to concentrate for hours to get the beam lined up with the sample and the sample lined up with the beam. Your channel is criminally underrated, if I had science teachers showing me things like this back when I was in school than it prob wouldn't have taken me until my late 20s early 30s to really take a deep interest in science.

this must be one of the most interesting videos i've ever seen in all of my time spent on youtube. what we achieved as a species is still one of the things that blowes my mind more than anything elese. If i think of all the technology and engeneering and science behind an instrument like that, I am just speachless. Thanks for the amazing video

I used to study ultrathin biological samples with electron microscopes 35 years ago. We couldn't go down to atomic level, just to the size of intracellular structures, but the process was very similar to what you have presented, and it was sometimes quite nerve-wracking to set the focus and everything right. At that time only a very few really powerful microscopes were able to see the the outline of atoms. Since then, there's been a great leap forward in technology. Keep on with the good work!👍

21:15 atomic navigation: "its next to that big white dot"