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

In their experiment, Velasco's team utilized the finely tipped probe of a scanning tunneling microscope to first create a trap for electrons, and then hover close to a graphene surface to detect electron movements without physically disturbing them.

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Then, with the scanning tunneling microscope, they were able to observe quantum chaos in action: finally seeing with their own eyes the pattern of electron orbits within the stadium billiard they created in Velasco's lab.

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

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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.

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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.

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