Leo Gross is a scientist working in the same IBM Zurich lab that imaged the first atom, for which the Nobel Prize was later awarded to IBM Fellows Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer (with German physicist Ernst Ruska).
Now Gross has one-upped his colleagues by leading the IBM team that has zoomed in to image individual bonds between atoms for the first time. The ability to image each bond between adjacent atoms will simplify the development of new materials as well as allow scientists to unravel the structure of unknown compounds found in nature.
Over the next decade, Gross’ research could result in the development of new organic materials that revolutionize solar cells, light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and carbon-based semiconductors like graphene. Gross realized the world’s first images on individual atomic bonds with Fabian Mohn, Nikolaj Moll, Bruno Schuler, and Gerhard Meyer at IBM, and with Alejandro Criado, Enrique Guitián and Diego Peña at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, as well as André Gourdon at CNRS, in Toulouse Cedex, France.