Look at the world's smallest Christmas tree: made by a physics student

The example of the largest Christmas tree in the whole world is well known. The Christmas tree on Mount Ingino is illuminated

design in the shape of a Christmas tree,which is installed annually on the slopes of Mount Ingino outside the city of Gubbio, in the Umbria region of Italy. The tree is also called the "Gubbio Christmas tree" or the largest Christmas tree in the world.

However, no one has ever tried to create the smallest Christmas tree. 

During her studies, student Willems workswith a scanning tunneling microscope. It is a sophisticated device capable of scanning individual atoms and even changing their position. She uses this microscope to create small structures, literally atom by atom, to study their quantum mechanical properties.

Credit: TU Delft.

Recently, just before the New Year holidays,Willems came up with the idea to make a Christmas tree by removing 51 atoms from a perfect crystal lattice. The tree is exactly 4 nanometers tall, or 4 millionths of a millimeter (not counting the top).

TU Delft

Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) isthe predecessor of all scanning probe microscopes. It was invented in 1981 by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM Zurich. Five years later, they were awarded the Nobel Prize for their invention in physics. STM was the first microscope to provide surface images with very precise, atomic resolution.

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