A single molecule has been photographed–sort of–for the first time by a team from IBM. Here it is:
The molecule even looks like how it’s diagrammed. The experiment was conducted under very cold conditions:
The experiment was also performed inside a high vacuum at the extremely cold temperature of -268C to avoid stray gas molecules or atomic vibrations from affecting the measurements.
The molecule pictured is roughly one-millionth the diameter of a grain of sand. This is plausibly said to be a significant step forward in nanotechnology.