"Seeing" chemistry - another remarkable result

I have written before (here, here) about the IBM Zurich group that has used atomic force microscopy in ultrahigh vacuum to image molecules on surfaces with amazing resolution.  They've done it again.  Starting with an elaborate precursor molecule, the group has been able to use voltage pulses to strip off side groups, so that in the end they leave behind a ring of eighteen carbon atoms, each bound to its neighbor on either side.  The big question was, would it be better to think of this molecule as having double bonds between each carbon, or would it be energetically favorable to break that symmetry and have the bonds alternate between triple and single.  It turns out to be the latter, as the final image shows a nonagon with nine-fold rotational symmetry.  Here is a video where the scientists describe the work themselves (the video is non-embeddable for some reason).  Great stuff.