A Conversation for Make Yourself a Scanning Tunnelling Microscope
The problems IMHO
Dr Hell Started conversation Jul 27, 2001
Making an STM is in fact 'easy' if you have access to a fairly well- equipped lab.
The problem is not the Microscope or the process per se - that's the easy part... In fact it's baffling easy - Before I actually saw an STM for the first time I thought it must be a huge piece of machinery with megavolt powersupply and all kinds of high-tech stuff attached... In fact it's a small (10cm) plexiglass cube with a small needle in it and an output to a PC. Works fine. Let's come to the real problem, why it's not 'easy' to have a 'home-made' STM:
The problem is (IMHO) the piezo-unit: Expensive & can't be made out of ordinary quartz chops one could buy in the store next door. THAT's the real problem. (Not a big techy one, but expensive anyway)
Also: Coating stuff with Silver is probably also not easy, so a 'home built' STM would 'only' see surfaces of metallic stuff.
It's amazingly easy anyway.
Bye,
HELL
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The problems IMHO
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