Under the microscope

"For a life science, it is truly remarkable progress to see how DNA links, allowing us to investigate the origin of life. It is also possible to find mismatched and defective DNA, which may help and find a new way to cure disease," Besenbacher says.

Qiu and his team spent eight years refining the Atomic Force Microscope.

An Atomic Force Microscope is an extremely precise microscope that uses an atom-sized probe to move across the surface of a sample so that it is able to detect individual atoms and image them.

The precision of a general purpose Atomic Force Microscope reaches one-10th of a nanometer, but far from enough to see the hydrogen bond.

Qiu and his team redesigned the probe, and finally developed a new technologies package for probe production, which is patent pending.

The team also optimized mechanical design of the microscopy. And the precision of the specialized microscopy has reached sub-nanometer, or about a millionth of the width of a human hair.

"This is like how speed racers refit their vehicles - they modify the engine, the drive system, the shock attenuation device, etc.

"What I did is quite similar: I refit my Atomic Force Microscope. The probe is as important as my engine so I redesigned it, and I made changes to other parts to ensure they fit the high performance engine," he says.

The advancement of science equipment is without end, as is the exploration into hydrogen bonds.

"Maybe one day we will manage the technique to regulate hydrogen bonds, so that with those devices, we will be controlling the shape of DNA and protein as easy as pie," he says.