Measuring Charges on ATOMS

IBM Scientists Directly Measure Charge States of Atoms Using an Atomic Force Microscope - June 12, 2009 Friday 2:22 PM GMT - PR Newswire

As reported in the June 12 issue ofSciencemagazine, Leo Gross, Fabian Mohn and Gerhard Meyer of IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Regensburg and Utrecht University imaged and identified differently charged individual gold and silver atoms by measuring the tiny differences in the forces between the tip of an atomic force microscope and a charged or uncharged atom located in close proximity below it.

To conduct these experiments, researchers used a combined scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) operated in vacuum at very low temperature (5 Kelvin) to achieve the high stability necessary for these measurements.

I am sure that it is only because I am a huge geek that I think this is cool but ...