In 2013, IBM Research published the world’s shortest animation film. The film called "A Boy and His Atom" is a 60-second whimsical story of a boy becoming friends with an atom (starring as itself!!). The scientists used a tunneling microscope to produce the stop-motion film. The instrument magnified the 12 atoms to 100 million times their actual size. Though short, the film is amazing.
More information:
cnet.com/news/a-boy-and-his-atom-a-film-made-with-individual-atoms