Brief history of SPM

In hindsight it may be that the invention of the STM was not, in itself, the most significant aspect of the work of the group at IBM. Rather it was the thinking which led to the STM. and its technical implementation, which paved the way for a plethora of scanned probe techniques. In Fig. 3 the family tree, in its present and somewhat abbreviated form, has been sketched. For purposes of 

In view of the cunent relative popularities of the various SPM techniques the discu.s.sion will be confined principally to STM/STS and to AFM and its variants. 

Some of ihe aitribuies and features of the various microscopies/spectros-copies are summarized in Table 2. The most topical figures of merit have to do with spatial resolution at a later stage resolution in the temporal domain will also be considered. Spatial resolution figures are very much subject to Judgment and practical considerations, as they often are for other microscopies. The rel- 

Technique Interaction r-resolution (nm). vy-resolution (nm) Int. vol. (m ) Probe/tip Information attributes 

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