First-Ever Photo of a Single Atom Captured : A Game-Changer for Science 🙂 Eight years ago, a groundbreaking scientific achievement changed the way we understand the world at the microscopic level. Physicist David Nadlinger, working at the University of Oxford, captured the first-ever photograph of a single atom. This astonishing feat won top honors at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) Science Photography Competition in the UK, and the image has since become a symbol of progress in quantum physics.