Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Chemistry say they have successfully trapped individual krypton atoms to create the world’s first-ever one-dimensional gas. The atoms of Krypton (Kr), a noble gas, were trapped inside a carbon nanotube using an advanced version of transmission electron microscopy (TEM).
“As far as we know, this is the first time that chains of noble gas atoms have been imaged directly, leading to the creation of a one-dimensional gas in a solid material,” said Professor Paul Brown, director of the Nanoscale and Microscale Research Centre (nmRC), University of Nottingham.
In the future, the team says they are planning to employ electron microscopy to directly image temperature-controlled phase transitions and chemical reactions in these types of one-dimensional systems, which may “unlock the secrets” of such unusual states of matter.
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