Nano-seismics - geoscientifically inspired, molecule-specific 3D depth analysis with nanometer resolution

The causes of earthquakes have long been understood by geologists. The localization of earthquakes using seismological methods has also been developed in order to detect hypocenters up to several hundred kilometers deep inside the earth and their epicentres on the earth's surface with a high degree of accuracy. Seismometers measure the seismic waves triggered by earthquakes and help to determine the location of an earthquake.

What helps to decipher our world in the macro-universe is to be transferred to the nanocosmos. Inspired by the findings of earthquake research, the project aims to find the smallest objects under a sample surface by using seismic methods and reducing them from the kilometer scale to nano dimensions.

 
To this end, molecules are specifically excited to vibrate by irradiation. These vibrations act like the smallest earthquakes, i.e. "nano-quakes", and can be detected by microphones, in this particular case nanoscale probes, and assigned to the chemical components being searched for in a three-dimensional map.

In the "Nano-Seismics" project, scientists from the fields of geology, chemistry and physics are working together to reduce established methods of earthquake research from the kilometer scale to nanometer dimensions and, for example, to map cells directly in 3D in the future.