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Speeding Up STM Imaging

Posted by kdawson on from the ready-for-my-close-up-mr.-demille dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Probably not many of you have used a scanning tunneling microscope (STM), the essential tool of nanoscience. And you might think that it's as easy to take a picture of an atom with an STM as it is to take a shot with your digital camera. In fact, the imaging of individual atoms with an STM is quite slow. Now researchers at Cornell University have shown how to accelerate this process — by adding a radio transmitter, they are able to speed up atomic-level microscopy by a factor of at least 100. A typical STM currently has a sampling rate of about one KHz. This new radio-frequency STM can operate a thousand times faster."

4 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. I had to laugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Probably not many of you have used a scanning tunneling microscope (STM), the essential tool of nanoscience Wow, this guy must be psychic!
    1. Re:I had to laugh by ParaShoot · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wow, this guy must be psychotic! Fixed.
  2. Wait a bit by AlphaLop · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't buy one now though, because a model with double the features will be out in 6 months for less $$$ ;)

    --
    It's only paranoia if your wrong...
  3. Re:Building a STM by jamesh · · Score: 3, Funny

    And you might think that it's as easy to take a picture of an atom with an STM as it is to take a shot with your digital camera.

    has a dumberer sentence ever been uttered in a /. submission?

    I don't think so. The last picture I took with my digital camera had billions of atoms captured. If an STM can only capture a few at a time then it has a lot of catching up to do!