Inside the center, there are 6 soundproof rooms located underground designed to completely eliminate all sounds from acoustic waves, physical vibrations, and electromagnetic radiation coming from outside.
Exploring IBM’s Quietest Room in the World
If you want to conduct a scientific experiment that separates each atom from a molecule, you need professional equipment and above all, an ultra-high-resolution microscope. However, that microscope will become useless when the surrounding environment is chaotic with many sounds causing vibrations in the lens.
This quietest room in the world is IBM’s nanotechnology research lab.
However, there’s no need to worry, as the electron microscope located near downtown Zurich (Switzerland) lies in the Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center of IBM, completely dust-free, with no external noise, shielded by electromagnetic shields, anti-vibration systems, and is particularly ‘cool’ in the literal sense.
Unique Structure of Each Room
The center contains 6 soundproof rooms underground designed to completely eliminate all sounds from acoustic waves, physical vibrations, and electromagnetic radiation from outside. Each room serves a specific purpose. One is equipped with a Raman microscope for molecular research; another uses an optical microscope but employs an electron beam instead of light for observation. Each room is surrounded by thick nickel-iron alloy walls. Therefore, don’t expect to receive a phone call when inside these rooms.
One of the “quietest” research rooms in the world.
Additionally, each room is divided into two areas: a lobby where the operator sits and a main space equipped with soundproofing to separate humans from experiments, as even breathing can create significant sound and vibration. Furthermore, each room features two distinct levels. One level is for scientists to walk around, while the other is not so much a floor as it is a massive concrete block with a vibration-damping system to prevent large vibrations from trucks on the ground above.
Scientists work in a completely silent environment.
Lastly, there is a smart air conditioning system that operates silently and circulates the least amount of air possible while maintaining a stable temperature of 21°C. Meanwhile, tiny holes in the suspended floors allow air to flow upward, reaching the ceiling and being expelled outside. As a result, the room has virtually no air movement.
The Incredible “Coolness” of These Rooms
With such meticulous construction, the price is certainly “not insignificant”—around 90 million USD! Of that, 30 million USD goes toward equipment. Worthy of such a hefty sum, these rooms are dubbed ‘the quietest in the world’.
The TEM electron microscope.
The anti-vibration capabilities of these rooms are impressive, reducing incoming sound vibrations to less than 300nm/s at a frequency of 1Hz and less than 10nm/s at a frequency of 100Hz. While it effectively isolates outside noise, it cannot eliminate the small sounds from the equipment. The sound level here is always below 30dB, a level that is virtually inaudible to the human ear.
Why Did IBM Create These Facilities?
By reducing vibrations and sounds that affect the research process, scientists can obtain images that are 2-3 times clearer through the microscope compared to normal conditions without soundproofing. Moreover, researchers also want to observe the equipment’s performance in an almost perfect state.
Raman microscope.
Looking back in history, during the 1980s and 1990s, IBM researchers had to operate in the basement of their headquarters because there were no specialized nanotechnology facilities, let alone soundproof rooms like today. When Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invented the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) and worked tirelessly to block noise from passing vehicles, they eventually won the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 2011, IBM built a soundproof headquarters in Zurich, named after these two inventors, applying their invention in research.
