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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."

3 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Building a STM by Aglassis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Probably not many of you have used a scanning tunneling microscope (STM), the essential tool of nanoscience

    You might be surprised.

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    Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
  2. Fabulous STM photos by ribuck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you want to see photos of atoms taken by an STM, there's a great gallery here:

    STM Image Gallery
    http://www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm/gallery.html

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  3. Huh? by Pseudonym · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Essential? Bah! I work in a nanotech lab, and we don't have a STM!

    We do have a brand new AFM, though, and it is kinda sluggish. I wonder if this technique would speed up that.

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    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});