Atomic Force Microscopy

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.