scanning tunneling microscope

noun

1. a device that uses a moving needle and the tunnel effect to generate a maplike image of the atomic surface structure of matter, thereby achieving even greater magnification than the scanning electron microscope.

scanning tunneling microscope

1. A microscope used to make images of individual atoms on the surface of a metal. The microscope has a probe with a small voltage applied to it ending in a tiny sharp tip (ideally consisting of one atom) that is moved close the material's surface. Quantum tunneling of electrons between tip and the metal provides a small current, and that current is held constant by varying the distance between the tip and the material's surface atoms. As the probe is moved across the surface, a three-dimension image of the surface is formed, based on the continual adjustments made to the height of the tip to keep the electron flow constant.

Example Sentences

These achievements were made using a scanning tunneling microscope probe at low temperatures.

From Science Daily

This was achieved by exciting a target molecular unit with tunneling current from a scanning tunneling microscope probe at low temperature under ultrahigh vacuum conditions.

From Science Daily

Originally proposed by physicist Richard Feynman in 1959, nanotechnology got a major boost when Austrian researchers developed the Scanning Tunneling Microscope, which zooms in to view surfaces at the atomic level, in 1981.

From Salon

"We can see the individual cobalt atoms by usinga scanning tunneling microscope. Each atom has a spin, which can be thought of as a magnetic north or south pole. Measuring it was crucial to our surprising discoveries," explains Bode.

From Science Daily

By harnessing the power of an intense external magnetic field and using an iron tip in the scanning tunneling microscope, the Würzburg physicists managed to determine the magnetic orientation of the cobalt's spin.

From Science Daily