Scanning probe microscopy

An atomically or near atomically sharp needle or crystal tip scans or swing-taps over a surface. Some physical interaction mechanism (electrical tunneling curren / force interaction / ...) is used for a feedback loop and as contrast source for the image. Images are usually scanned line by line slowly building up. Due to the local physical contact beside imaging actual manipulation can be done.

The two main types of SPM are:

• STM scanning tunnelling microscopy
• AFM atomic force microscopy

Miniaturization

The smaller scanning probe microscopes are built the faster they can work. (TODO: elaborate on that)

Related

• Patterned layer epitaxy

External Links

• Wikipedia: scanning probe microscopy
• Wikipedia: scanning tunneling microscopy
• Wikipedia: atomic force microscopy

• At "Foresight Technical Conference 2013" Neil Sarkar gave a talk called "microscopic microscopes for the masses"
  (TODO: Video recording was online (known!) - find it and add link to this vimeo video - was it removed?)
  Now (2016) the microscope is available at a price point of $2,490 USD: (announcement)
  icspicorp homepage

Images of tips

TEM-images of tungsten STM tips where atomic lattice features are resolved:

• Figure 3: Transmission electron micrographs of recrystallized W tips processed by FDSS.
  This figure is part of the paper: Field-directed sputter sharpening for tailored probe materials and atomic-scale lithography