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Another instrument used to visulaise the nanoworld is the Scanning Tunnelling Microscope or STM. The STM is similar to the AFM. This time a quantum mechanical effect called electron tunneling is used. Electrons can jump or tunnel from one place to another due to their wave-like nature. This can be used to produce a current. This is used in STM when a tunneling current is passed between a sharp tip and the surface you want to image. The strength of the current depends on the distance between the tip and the surface and this is measured to produce an image.
The images produced using the AFM and STM can be beautiful. Here are a selection produced with the STM by researchers at IBM. These are reproduced with the kind permission of IBM.
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