'Single Atom in an Ion Trap', by David Nadlinger, a student in Professor David Lucas's Trapped Ion Lab, based in the Physics Department at the University of Oxford, shows the atom held by the fields emanating from the metal electrodes surrounding it.

The distance between the small needle tips is about two millimetres. When illuminated by a laser of the right blue-violet colour the atom absorbs and re-emits light particles sufficiently quickly for an ordinary camera to capture it in a long exposure photograph.

The winning picture was taken through a window of the ultra-high vacuum chamber that houses the ion trap. Laser-cooled atomic ions provide a pristine platform for exploring and harnessing the unique properties of quantum physics.

Trapped strontium ions are used to implement the light/matter interface in NQIT's networked quantum computing demonstrator.

David Nadlinger explained how the photograph came about: "The idea of being able to see a single atom with the naked eye had struck me as a wonderfully direct and visceral bridge between the miniscule quantum world and our macroscopic reality," he said.

"A back-of-the-envelope calculation showed the numbers to be on my side, and when I set off to the lab with camera and tripods one quiet Sunday afternoon, I was rewarded with this particular picture of a small, pale blue dot."

Read more about this story:

• EPSRC: Single Trapped Atom Captures Science Photography Competition's top prize
• University of Oxford: Image of strontium atom wins national science photography prize
• The Independent: Picture of single atom suspended in electric fields wins top science photography prize