STARS: Scanning Probe Microscopy

The utility of scanning probe microscopes across disciplines and industries makes them one of the most important classes of instrumentation in the emergence of the global nanotechnology enterprise. Probe microscopes work by bringing a small, solid tip, the probe, very close to a surface and then rastering or scanning the probe over the surface while measuring some interaction between probe and surface. Probe microscopy research community usually traces the origin of the technique back to 1981, when Heinrich Rohrer and Gerd Binnig, researchers at the IBM laboratory near Zurich, invented a rudimentary version of the scanning tunneling microscope with help from technical staff, Christoph Gerber. Binnig, Rohrer, Gerber, and early converts such as Paul Hansma at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Calvin Quate at Stanford developed modifications to the original STM that made its operation considerably more reliable and user friendly by shrinking the size of the microscope they made it less prone to vibration.