I was introduced to vacuum tunneling high over the Atlantic while flying to London in April 1982. For months prior to that flight I had been fretting about the future work of our microscopy research group at Stanford. We had just completed our work in acoustic microscopy and were looking for new directions. I was considering a variety of problems, such as the building of an x‐ray microscope, but nothing would fall into place. I thought that a trip to a conference in London might provide some time to get away and think. On the way to the airport I stopped by my office and picked up the latest issue of this magazine. I think we were over Iceland when I opened it and found a report (PHYSICS TODAY, April 1982, page 21) on a new form of scanning microscopy being developed in Zurich. In London, I changed my travel plans and went to Zurich. It proved to be the start of an adventure for our group, an adventure that still continues, undiminished in excitement.
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August 1986
August 01 1986
Vacuum Tunneling: A New Technique for Microscopy
The scanning tunneling microscope resolves individual atoms on surfaces by probing the surface electron wavefunctions with the tip of an extremely sharp needle, revealing a new world of steps, terraces and atomic arrays.
Physics Today 39 (8), 26–33 (1986);