Researchers are working at the limits of what can be measured with ever greater precision. They are even controlling individual atoms and utilising quantum physical peculiarities for new technologies. However, due to the tiny scales involved, even something as seemingly simple as monitoring success becomes a gargantuan task. For example, when surfaces are scanned atom by atom for certain molecules. An interdisciplinary research group at TU Braunschweig, coordinated by Professor Timo de Wolff (Institute of Analysis and Algebra) and Professor Uta Schlickum (Institute of Applied Physics), has therefore developed an artificial intelligence that characterises images from scanning tunnelling microscopes with 99 per cent accuracy.