Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM)

Hello #linkedin. I am promising you that who ever reading this article it is going to mind blowing to you guys! Let me guess most of you guys are in confusion what is in cover picture.. Its an electron image generated by an AI. Why I used the electron any idea its related to the topic of the article that is Scanning Tunneling Microscope.

The Scanning Tunneling Microscope from the name itself you guys can understand the atoms in atomic level. This technology will help us to analyze the structures in Monolayer level. The first study of monolayers were done by Langmuir Blodgett. It allows scientists to study the arrangement of atoms, investigate surface properties, and manipulate individual atoms or molecules.

Quite interesting right! now getting deeper into this STM we can know about its principle! I hope you guys are getting excited by reading this article like wise electrons at the tip of the microscope are also getting excited because the current is applied to the tip of the microscope. Current is given to the tip of the microscope that is a small bias voltage is applied.

Who can skip mathematics here! so consider three axis that is X,Y,Z. In Z axis is the direction of the tip of the microscope. After applying the current the gap between the microscope tip and surface is large means no current flow is there. If the distance is small means the overlap between tip electron and surface electron happens. As the result the current is produced. In physics you need to name everything relatively so they named it as "Tunneling Current". Its easy to remember Tunneling current - Tunneling microscope.

The tip of the microscope is made of Platinum/Iridium. The Apparatus is working on two ways. One will capture image another one will capture irregular surface! The sample image will be captured by scanning fast that image is known as "current Image".

This article contains the basic idea about Scanning Tunneling Microscope. Hope you guys love this. Follow for more #nanotechnology content like this.