Atomic Force Microscopy

OCT 01, 1990

It is surprisingly easy to make a cantilever with a spring constant weaker than the equivalent spring between atoms, allowing a sharp tip to image both conducting and nonconducting samples at atomic resolution.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881238

Daniel Rugar

Paul Hansma

In 1986 Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the scanning tunneling microscope and discovering that it can image individual surface atoms with unprecedented resolution. The success of the scanning tunneling microscope has led to the invention of a host of other “scanning probe” microscopes, which rely on mechanically scanning a sharp tip over a sample surface. The atomic force microscope is one of the most successful of these new devices.

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More about the authors

Daniel Rugar, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, California.

Paul Hansma, University of California, Santa Barbara.