Rohrer, and Binnig

This slow diffusion of a crucial new technique can be compared with the invention of the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) by Binnig and Rohrer, first made public in 1983, like X-ray diffraction rewarded with the Nobel Prize 3 years later, but unlike X-ray diffraction quickly adopted throughout the world. That invention, of comparable importance to the discoveries of 1912,now(2 decades later) has sprouted numerous variants and has virtually created a new branch of surface science. With it, investigators can not only see individual surface atoms but they can also manipulate atoms singly (Eigler and Schweitzer 1990). This rapid adoption of... 

The main technique employed for in situ electrochemical studies on the nanometer scale is the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM), invented in 1982 by Binnig and Rohrer [62] and combined a little later with a potentiostat to allow electrochemical experiments [63]. The principle of its operation is remarkably simple, a typical simplified circuit being shown in Figure 6.2-2. 

The STM method was developed by Binnig and Rohrer, who received the Nobel Prize for their invention. STM is the most mature of the scanning probe methods. A sharp tip (curvature of the order 100 A) is brought close to a surface and a low potential difference (the bias voltage) is applied between sample and tip. 

The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) was invented by Binnig and Rohrer in 1982. This quickly led to the award of a Nobel prize in 1986. Initially, STM proved... 

The discovery of scanning tunneling microscopy (Binnig and Rohrer, 1982). 

Scanning probe microscopy was invented by Binnig and Rohrer (Nobel Prize, 1986) (Birdi, 2002a). Scanning tunneling microscope (STM) was based on scanning a probe (metallic tip) since it is a sharp tip just above the substrate, while monitoring... 

In view of the extreme simplicity of the STM as an instrument, one may wonder why it was not invented mmy decades ago. Probably the reason is that the STM is a hybrid of several different branches of science and technology that generally have very little communication with each other. These parent areas are classical tunneling experiments (a branch of low-temperature physics), surface science (a branch of vacuum physics), and microscopy. The technological implementation of STM required skills and knowledge in different disciplines such as mechanical, electronic, and control engineering. The invention of the STM was a result of the cross-fertilization of different branches of science (Binnig and Rohrer, 1987), much as advocated by Maxwell more than a century ago. 

Fig. 9.6. Tripod scanner. Three PZT bars to control the x, y, and z displacements, respectively. The tip is mounted at the vertex of the tripod. (Reproduced from Binnig and Rohrer, 1987, with permission.)...

The piezoelectric stepper, nicknamed the louse, was the first successful stepper used in UHV STM (Binnig and Rohrer, 1982). A schematic of the louse is shown in Fig. 12.1. As shown, the actuating element of the louse is a piezoelectric plate (PP), which can be expanded or contracted by applying a voltage (100 to 1000 V). It is resting on three metal feet (MF), separated by high-dielectric-constant insulators (I) from the metal ground plate (GP). 

The tip treatment can be done during actual tunneling. Often, these in situ tip treatments take a few seconds to complete. The effect of the tip treatment process can be verified by actual imaging immediately. If one action is not successful, another action can proceed immediately—it takes a few more seconds. As we have mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, these methods was already used at the birth of the STM by the inventors in their first set of experiments (Binnig and Rohrer, 1982). 

Tip sharpening by controlled collision (Fig. 13.11) was also used by Binnig and Rohrer in their very first experiments with Si(l]l)-7 X 7 (1982, 1987). Demuth et al. (1988) provided experimental evidence that during a mild collision of a W tip with a Si surface, the W tip picks up a Si cluster. The tip then provides atomic resolution, and a crater is left on the Si surface. The p, dangling-bond state on the Si cluster is apparently the origin of the observed atomic resolution. 

Towards the end of the conference, Binnig and Rohrer said that it had to end immediately because both were members of the laboratory soccer team. The reporters followed them to the soccer field. A photographer for the Swiss newspaper Blick took this photograph before the game started. The IBM Zurich Laboratory lost 2 4. 

The scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) was invented in the early 1980s by Binnig and Rohrer who were awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in physics for their work. 

Scanning tunneling (STM) was invented a decade ago by Binnig and Rohrer [72], and was first applied to the solid-liquid interface by Sonnenfeld and Hansma in 1986 [73]. Since then, there have been numerous applications of STM to in situ electrochemical experiments [74-76]. Because the STM method is based on tunneling currents between the surface and an extremely small probe tip, the sample must be reasonably conductive. Hence, STM is particularly suited to investigations of redox and conducting polymer-modified electrodes [76,77],... 

Three major advancements in resolution have occurred since Hookes s discovery of the optical microscope in 1665 [46]. In 1873, Ernst Abbe established fundamental criteria for the resolution limit in optical microscopy [47], which did not exceed the range of a couple of 100 nanometers even after the introduction of the confocal optical microscope [43,48]. The invention of the transmission electron microscope by Ernst Ruska in 1933 extended the resolution of microscopes to the nanometer scale [49]. Finally, scanning tunnelling microscopy introduced, by Binnig and Rohrer in 1981, made a breakthrough when atomic... 

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