US Patent 7790051 - Atom isolation with silicon nanocrystals

http://ip.com/patent/US7790051

The manipulation of individual atoms was first achieved in the 1980's by Don Eigler of IBM using a scanning tunneling microscope. This patent from Sandia Corp. also teaches a SPM method of analyzing single atoms in which silicon nanocrystals are used to retain the atoms in particular locations. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for isolating single atoms of an atomic species of interest within silicon nanocrystals to provide for movement of each single atom using an atomic force microscope tip to move the silicon nanocrystal containing that single atom, comprising the steps of:

providing a substrate having the silicon nanocrystals located thereon;

implanting the silicon nanocrystals with ions of the atomic species of interest at an ion energy and at an ion dose rate which statistically implants, on average, only one of the ions of the atomic species of interest into each silicon nanocrystal; and

measuring an electrical charge distribution of the silicon nanocrystals and thereby identifying which of the silicon nanocrystals contain the single atom of the atomic species of interest and which of the silicon nanocrystals contain a different number of atoms of the atomic species of interest.