The scanning tunnelling microscope (developed by IBM laboratories in Zurich in 1981), uses a very sharp tip consisting of only a few atoms which hovers over the surface of a sample at a distance of one nanometre. This technique, which is available at SOLEIL’s surfaces laboratory, is a tool that complements synchrotron techniques by facilitating the study of matter at the atomic level.
Date: 2010 Duration: 3.24 Produced by: Jean-Yves Pipaud, EPSIM Credits: SOLEIL synchrotron, Institut des Nanosciences de Paris (INSP), European Commission, IBM Research, Fotolia
