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Presumably, when the laser is strong enough, the fluorescence will be very strong too. So, is it possible to see a single atom with a naked eye?

J.Bates
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    Seeing fluorescence is not the same as seeing the object. To be able to "see" a single atom implies being able to resolve it as something more than a point object. – Carl Witthoft Mar 24 '16 at 16:00
  • The dark-adapted human eye is sensitive to quite small numbers of photons: tens to ~ one hundred I think. So if you could persuade it to emit enough photons fast enough (say 100-1000 per second) in the direction of your eye, then yes, you would see something: whether that is 'seeing an atom' is a slightly different question –  Mar 24 '16 at 18:05
  • @CarlWitthoft I'd be pretty content saying "I've seen an individual atom with my naked eye" if I could detect it as a point source and have the assurance (as in, say, a linear ion trap with suitable inter-ion separations) that each point source is an individual atom. Actually resolving the structure of each source, I would argue, is completely unnecessary, and doesn't even mean that much. – Emilio Pisanty Mar 24 '16 at 18:57
  • @CarlWitthoft: Fluorescent imaging is quite capable of achieving molecular resolution these days, even if the classically taught physicist has an innate emotional response to that... but that's because what he was taught about the resolution of optical imaging devises was flawed. Yes, one can see individual atoms. What is harder is to distinguish two of them that are very close together... but that is a very different question from "seeing". – CuriousOne Mar 25 '16 at 01:00

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