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Build Your Own Scanning Tunneling Microscope
I don't want to spen writes "For all you fans of nanotech out there, a friend just posted me a link to instructions for building a scanning tunnelling microscope, from the University of Muenster. Interestingly, their licensing terms sound open source-ish to me: '(... We grant everybody the right to construct the microscope using the here-published design for private or educational purposes. On these web pages all necessary diagrams, drawings, material descriptions and software-source-codes are published for free access. While granting the right to build the microscope we make it mandatory that new developments, improvements or other applications of our design are also made openly available for private or educational purposes...)'"
come on! At least write it in java....
:-D
Seriously though, looks like a great summer project.. Not to mention my college will now have a SEM because of these plans
I work in a plant growth research lab, and we built one of these to get real time images of protoplasts (plant cells in culture). It was cheap, and produces what I found to be suprisingly excellent-quality images. Of course, we also got a hundred thousand dollar Bausch & Lomb scope to do more "complicated" work...
Okay the instructions are in English - nice. The diagrams are in German? Need a little help here...
>> from the article:
:\
The software was written in Visual Basic 6 for Windows
Great! But I wanted to control the STM from my linux box
It already controls my lights, coffie maker, telephone, network, CD player...
NeoThermic
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
A hardware desging, in the GPL style, released to man for his education and enlightenment?
/faints/
You mean this is not like, say for a example, some greedy physician who comes up with a slightly different way of suturing someone with existing tools, patenting said technique, and then demanding worldwide royalties????
The end is near!
--
Well, I still have this covered, but not many of my friends do.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
My question may seem weird due to my ignorance. Is it possible to use such a microscope to find the structure of say.. the HIV virus and its chemical composition? Secondly, how are such small structures located/found due to the huge spatial distances involved?
Banu
Can a tunneling microscope see prions?
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
Interestingly, their licensing terms sound open source-ish to me: '(
:'("
heh, did anyone else quickly glance at that and think he was making a sad crying face because it sounded open source?
"Uh oh! It sounds like open source!
I dont think so
;-)
With BSD or GPL style licenses you are actually allowed to use the copyrighted work in an commercial setting, just not to sell it. For instance a commercial company might run their web server using GPL licensed software.
With this not only do they retain the exclusive commercial rights, but the license might in fact be read as an attempt to force you to turn over any improvements on their design.
So if you make an improvement, does this mean that you have implicitely granted the University of Muenster the rights for commercial exploitation of your own improvment by accepting their license in the first place?
This does not sound "open source-ish" to me, it sounds like out right theft.
PS: Please ignore any bad spellings/grammar in my english or at least be polite when telling me
You're full of shit. Ya can't use an STM with organic samples, let alone live organic samples, let along live organic samples in real time. I know most Slashdot residents are morons but try not to insult the intelligence of those of us who have one.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Your comment makes little sense. My lab does a lot of microscopy. B & L strictly make optical microscopes, which by the wavelengths of light, and properties of glass are restricted to resolve objects down to about 100 nanometers or so (at best - and we're talking with a really really good confocal or deconvolution microscope that runs about $500K). Mediocre electron microscopes visualize objects down to about 1000 angstroms. That's two orders of magnitude better, perhaps more if you have a good EM setup.
I think a similar thing was done with robots that carried out part of the human genenome project. Sorry I forget the group that put the plans out on web. Any how, there is certianly a demand for scientific instruments that can be assembled for relatively low cost. A good thing for universities in developing countries, that can't afford the cost of brand new equipment. I saw a pH meter made of the carbon rods from D size cells made in India. A lot of labs in developing countries either buy second hand equipment, but just like every thing else there is planned obsolesence, and parts get hard to find or make.
See if those penis enlargement pills are working.
I mean this is cool, bet really the cost on older electron microscopes is pretty low (under 2k) Heck theres a phillips 500 for sale on Ebay for $1000 right now. I've often thought about buying one, but dont have 3 phase in the house and the garage is a little damp.
Yes, his post is completely wrong. However, there have been advances in STM so that you can do STM with fixed organic samples now. Here's an example of a recent published study. Also atomic force microscopy (AFM) has become fairly common with fixed organic samples. I'm not calling you wrong - I'm just updating Slashdot readers to the state of the art in biological microscopy.
But isn't this just the same as if I went to sourceforge / freshmeat (whatever) and downloaded a GPL'd application. I can get the source without going through a click through license. I can also compile the source without seeing any contracts.
By your logic I can do anything I want because I didn't explicitly agree to the GPL and never signed anything that stated I would not use the software if I didn't agree to the GPL.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Unless they have patents, there is nothing they can do to stop someone from building a microscope using their plans. The only thing they can do is stop you from copying the plans themselves (under copyright law).
John D. Alexander, the inventor of the disk scanner, also has a 'free' STM design on the web. Incidentally, this guy took out a patent on the disk scanner, then withdrew the patent application! Now that's a smart way to make sure others cannot lock up a design with patents (or he just ran out of money).
Talk about a classic example of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
You're getting this information for FREE. It hurts you not at all to have such a 'stupid' license, because previously, you didn't have the information at all. By every imaginable definition of the concept, you have more available to you now than you did previously.
You have no justification for being so bitter. In this era of jealously defended "intellectual property", ANYONE giving anything away deserves commendation.. not derision.
Despite what they call it in English (University of Muenster), the proper name is the Westfaelische Wilhelms Universitaet. Even though I am an American, I studied there for a semester.
/., it isn't a surprise to see good things from Muenster. It is one of those wonderful little secrets - a top notch place few know about.
;)
Muenster is a wonderful college town, as well as a place of historical significance (30 years war ended there). The hospital associated with the university, and thus the medical program, are well respected across Europe. (Comparible to Mayo / Johns Hopkins / Mass. General here in the US).
Anyway, while it is surprising to see this on the front of
Posting AC because I believe in privacy on the net
The GPL only kicks in when you *distribute* copies of the software. In this case if you choose to ignore the GPL, copyright law defaults to 'you are not allowed to distribute the software'. Hence the *only* legal way to distribute (note: I didn't say 'use') GPL'd software is to agree to the GPL.
There is a similar reasonably well-documented homebrew STM that was built by a guy named Jurgen Muller. His site is pretty interesting, and well worth the read.
Obviously there are a lot of articles on STMs in various academic journals. If you're at a university, you might start by searching in Reviews of Scientific Instruments and perhaps the Phys Rev journals.
I was involved with a STM project for a while, and our conclusion was that the 3D piezo setup is quite fragile, and extremely difficult to isolate from vibration, etc. It seemed that a better design was a so-called slip-stick walker, which uses a stage that slides on smooth rails. A tube of piezoelectric ceramic is attached and driven in such a way that it creates a series of small, sharp forces on the stage that momentarily break the static friction between the stage and base, causing it to move in small steps.
This stage is used to approach the sample to the STM tip, which is mounted on another piezo tube, and can be deflected laterally and vertically in order to do a raster scan of a small area of the surface.
The limitation to this method is that you can't scan a very large surface area. You can add a second "walker" unit underneath the first one so that you can move the sample from side to side in addition to moving it towards/away from the tip, so this would allow you to scan a stripe across the surface.
To get full 3D control, there are several designs called "beetles" (IIRC) that are described in the literature, which use a somewhat similar technique that allows more control.
We assure you, however, that hanging the scope from a thin scaffolding using light springs, and then attaching the entire setup to a huge piece of granite will not be sufficient.
On a more serious note, an STM is really easy to build, but really hard to make work. There has been more than one physics graduate student that has entered perpetual grad school limbo trying to get one of these to work. The vibration damping is just the start. Learning to etch the tungsten probes so that you get the necessary few atoms at the end is quite an ordeal. And then attaching the probe without allowing the tip to even come close to any surface. And then calibrating the piezoelectric so that the tip will be very very very close to the sample, but never touch it. You will go through 100 hand etched probes before the instrument is even grossly calibrated.
And then measuring the gap current. You learn what kind of noise a power supply really has. Getting a noise low enough so that a signal is discernible after amplification requires a power supply the likes of which few has seen. And then the noise that introduced by the amplification process. This are not your ordinary op amps. I shudder to even think about building a board that quiet.
But have fun, and remember us for you optical table needs. We are, after all, the only one who sell the genuine and otherwise real and purchasable Vibration Proof Table(TM)(patent pending).
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
If nothing else, it might be cool to build one just to look at stuff, and I finally have a use for that ISA slot.
-cp-
President Bush to Liberate Alaska!
For a horrible, horrible moment, I read the headline as "Build Your Own Spamming Tunneling Microscope."
Just think what horrid new forms of viral marketing a research tool like that could help develop.
If we use the FSF's mode of describing things as a point of reference, this is probably an open source project, but not a free one. If it were a software project, it would violate the very first of the freedoms the FSF considers essential (look here) in that it restricts who may use it for what purposes. Whether or not they can meaningfully impose that restriction is a separate issue.
Get ready to patent everything from pointers to linked lists to schedulers to drawing algorithms... (and before you mention there is prior art, that's not stopping anyone else now is it?)
Telescope? I think you need to read the story again...
In my universe, 1000 Angstrom is the same as 100 nanometers so that makes your statement zero orders of magnitude. My experience with a SEM that's cheaper than the $500k B&L is that you can get well below 100 nanometer.