SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE Definition & Meaning

scanning tunneling microscope

noun

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

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.

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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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