What could we do with layered structures with just the right layers? What would the properties of materials be if we could really arrange the atoms the way we want them? The curious American physicist Richard Feynman asked these questions in his landmark 1959 lecture, There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom. It bustled with profound ideas about “manipulating and controlling things on the atomic scale”, using quantum mechanics. Far-fetched at the time, now manipulating layers of atoms is a major research area. To realise Feynman’s vision, researchers at IBM and Bell Labs in the US had to devise a…

This story continues at The Next Web