Physicists measure van der Waals forces of individual atoms for the first time. Prof. Ernst Meyer et al, have succeeded in measuring the very weak van der Waals forces between individual atoms for the first time. To do this, they fixed individual noble gas atoms within a molecular network and determined the interactions with a single xenon atom that they had positioned at the tip of an atomic force microscope.
Prof. Ernst Meyer asked Scixel for a visual representation of their work, published in Nature Communications.