Abstract
The breakthrough of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) [1] in science and technical applications results from its potential in real space imaging of surfaces. As shown by early work [2,3], a lateral resolution can be achieved down to the nanometre or even atomic scale. Moreover, the idea of STM is conceptually simple. A strongly localized tunneling current between a sharp metal tip and the sample and scanning are used to image the surface. The localization of the current determines the lateral resolution. Since the instrumental requirements and the electronic circuitry of an STM are neither extremely sophisticated nor expensive, numerous of groups embarked on STM work right after the first publications had appeared and contributed to the development of this technique. This was certainly very different from electron microscopy which, for decades remained a subject for specialists and relied upon demanding equipment.
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