What is the significance of this? Its very interesting but why all the excitement?
Is it because its so incredibly small and never before been seen (imaged)?
If they can do this, they can synthesize a molecule to meet theoretical criteria for semiconductor properties they need, then image what they made to see if it is what they wanted.
It’s very important, especially for organic chemistry. You are taught a very specific way to draw rings and other structures in a specific way and this photo reinforces what we theorized.
The significance is that this is easily the most clear picture ever of something on the order of an atom in size. This imaging technology will be necessary for the nanotechnologists to examine their creations for flaws and to see if they work as designed. In addition, this type of advance in imaging technology has often led to a similar advance in assembling ability.
Definitely, the mere fact of demonstrating the ability to image a molecule and see its shape is exciting, but its limited to molecules cooled to near absolute zero. That destroys much useful information. The cooling can nearly eliminate the rotation and translation energy necessary for the technique, but there will still be vibrational modes present.
In the future, instruments like the Energy Recovery LINAC will be built. They may actually have the ability to take images with a “shutter speed” and “resolution” sufficient to see molecules and intermediates as they are taking part in a chemical reaction at normal temperatures. That will be truly earth shaking in the world of chemistry.