IBM in atoms was a demonstration by IBM scientists in 1989 of a technology capable of manipulating individual atoms. A scanning tunneling microscope was used to arrange 35 individual xenon atoms on a substrate of chilled crystal of nickel to spell out the three letter company initialism. It was the first time atoms had been precisely positioned on a flat surface.
On Apr 30, 2013 IBM published an article on its website and a video on YouTube called "A Boy And His Atom: The World's Smallest Movie".
Research
Donald Eigler and Erhard Schweizer of the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, used a scanning tunneling microscope to position 35 individual xenon atoms on a substrate of chilled crystal of nickel to form the acronym "IBM". They also created chains of xenon atoms similar in form to molecules.