Electron density waves in a quantum corral.

[Treefrog]

From here

I saw this on the cover of a book at a friend's house the other day and, when she explained what it was I was just blown away!

Using a Scanning Tunneling electron Microscope (STM) scientists arranged 48 Iron atoms in a circular corral on the surface of a piece of copper. Because copper is such a good electrical conductor there are a number of 'free' electrons on the surface and they stay inside the corral due to the charge of the Iron atoms' electron clouds.
The height of the waves inside the corral represents the chance of an electron being in that place, and as electrons behave (in part) like waves, they are 'reflected' from the corral walls in the same way that ripples from a stone dropped into a pond will bounce back when they reach the edge of the pond. What the photo shows is a ring approximately 13 atoms in diameter. A photograph of something that is thousands, if not millions, of times smaller than just one of the pixels you are currently looking at it on. Much, much smaller than the smallest grain of photographic emulsion that would previously have been used to record such a sight.

Another thought that occurred to me: if a normal everyday 6"x4" photograph were to be enlarged to the point where you could see individual atoms of the subject - how large would that photo then be?
The size of Europe? The Earth? The Earth's orbit? Our solar system?
And where do we go from here?

All I can say is: WOW!