8/21/2006: Close-up of the world's sharpest man-made item

[Undertoad]

axlrosen finds it here and I think it was boing boingd as well.

Looks huge to us in this image, but this is a tungsten needle: so sharp that the individual round globe-like things you see there are individual tungsten atoms. From the article linked at the source,

The Sharpest object yet made is a tungsten needle tapering down to about the thickness of single atom.

The needle, made by postdoc Moh'd Rezeq in the group of Robert Wolkow at the University of Alberta and the National Institute for Nanotechnology, starts out much blunter. Exposed to a pure nitrogen atmosphere, however, a rapid slimming begins. To start with the tungsten is chemically very reactive and the nitrogen roughens the tungsten surface. But at the tip, where the electric field created by applying a voltage to the tungsten is at its maximum, N2 molecules are driven away. This process reaches an equilibrium condition in which the point is very sharp.

I guess. The article also says that the needles will be "superb electron emitters. Being so slender, they would emit electrons in a bright, narrow, stable stream."

It all seems very impressive, but I don't have a good physics background. All I know is, the next time somebody calls me "needle dick", I'll have a really good comeback: tungsten needle dick.

(Oh please, a dick joke is always appropriate. I'm uncouth, or something.)