Scientists have just performed the world’s most precisely controlled chemical reaction, sticking together just two atoms from elements that wouldn’t normally form a molecule.

The two elements — sodium and caesium — produced an interesting alloy-like molecule. On top of that, this method of creation could set the way of making just the kind of materials we might need in future technology.

A team of Harvard University scientists used laser ‘tweezers’ to manipulate individual atoms of the two alkali metals into close proximity, and provided a photon to help them bond into a single molecule.

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