Scanning Tunneling Microscopy STM

Scanning Tunneling Microscopy STM: are instruments for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. STM is a non-optical microscope that works by scanning an electrical probe tip over the surface of a sample at a constant spacing. This allows for a 3D picture of the surface to be created. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986.