"A surface of silicon was revealed as a land of gentle, steadily rising undulations, in which the track of the probe could be seen like furrows dug with a plough. This particular image was so riveting and so beautiful that “Heini” (as Dr Rohrer told everyone to call him) had to take young Dr Binnig away for long walks through the real mountains to get their discovery in perspective, and to calm him down."
This is an excerpt from the Economists' obituary to Heinrich Rohrer, the father of nanotechnology, "quantum tunneling" and the Scanning Electron Microscope (STM).
When the technique was discovered in the 1980s, scientists were amazed to discover completely distinct, new 'landscapes' on the surface of metals.
Where can I find the image that Rohrer found so beautiful?
Was it something like this?
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| Surface of Silicon under STM (Image - Webphysics) |
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LINKS
- http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21578630-heinrich-rohrer-father-nanotechnology-died-may-16th-aged-79-heinrich-rohrer?
- IBM - STM Image Gallery - http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_project.php?id=4245
- http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ee230/sp08/giessibl%20Si%207x7%20AFM%202000.pdf
- http://education.mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/background/STM/
- http://webphysics.iupui.edu/warmup/iupui_archive/stm.html
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