Forget ruby-encrusted swords or diamond-tipped chainsaws. The scanning probe microscope is, quite literally, the sharpest object ever made. Hidden under its bulky silver exterior is a thin metal wire, as fine as a human hair. And at one end, its point tapers to the width of a single atom.

Scientists wield the wire not as a weapon, but as an intricate paintbrush—using its needlelike tip to position single atoms on a tiny semiconductor canvas. Ever since scientists at IBM invented the scanning probe microscope some 35 years ago, researchers have used it to create designs both goofy and groundbreaking. They’ve written nanometer-sized letters and Chinese characters. They’ve produced a stop-motion film out of individual carbon monoxide molecules. And they’ve used the machine to make the tiniest transistor of all time—out of a single atom.

A tungsten wire, a quarter milimeter at its base, sharpened to a single atom wide. Robert Wolkow/University of Alberta

But it’s hard to use the scanning probe microscope. Single atoms are finicky, so using the machine requires patience and precision. Over the last few years, Bob Wolkow has been working to tame this temperamental tool—and now, he thinks he’s streamlined its operation enough for manufacturing. His grand plan: use the machine to make new types of chips that could usher in a new era of computing.

His chip design involves assembling minute circuits, atom by atom, on conventional silicon computer chips. These circuits offer many perks for the next generation of computers, says Wolkow, a physicist at the University of Alberta in Canada—including energy efficiency.

Currently, transistors in computer chips represent binary information by holding onto electrons (a “1”) or dumping them to ground (“0”). This means that as you write and record information, your computer has to shuttle a lot of electrons around, which uses a lot of energy. Wolkow’s circuit design encodes information by altering the single atoms in the circuit.* For example, some atoms would have electrons attached to them ("1") and others would not ("0"). By making atoms exchange electrons back and forth, you can represent different binary numbers. So to record data, you just need enough energy to rearrange the electrons, which is much less than what you’d need to move around torrents of them.

They know how to perform most of the steps for efficiently assembling these circuits now. So here’s Wolkow’s pitch: Give his team $20 million to buy a fleet of scanning probe microscopes, and they’ll put all the steps together, plopping single atoms on chips at scale. “For the first time, I’m openly saying that I think I can manufacture a million chips per year,” says Wolkow, who also serves as the chief technology officer at an Alberta-based company, Quantum Silicon. “I couldn’t make one per year a few years ago.”