Homebrewed STM

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Article #830

#830

From: Gregory Bloom
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1993 03:43

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How hard is it to build an STM or AFM?  Does it seem like a project
that could be made on the scale of 'The Amateur Scientist' series
from Scientific American?  I have heard that getting the monatomic
tipped probe is perhaps the hardest part.  Could standard
electronics crystals, removed from their cases, be used to position
the probe?  How noisy can the controlling current be?  How hard is 
it to observe tunneling current?

Is 'rolling your own' STM merely unlikely, or am I asking something
more like 'how do I build a space shuttle in my backyard?'

Gregory Bloom
gbloom@nyx.cs.du.edu

[Homebrew STM's are a definite possibility;  the only one I've personally
 seen built was done by a couple of grad students in a lab here at
 Rutgers, though.  A lot depends on how much electronics you're willing
 to buy or are able to build.  Virtually all of them (including commercial
 ones) seem to use PCs.  Anybody reading ever built one?
 --JoSH]

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From: gbloom@nyx.cs.du.edu (Gregory Bloom)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Homebrewed STM
Message-ID: <Jan.4.22.43.27.1993.8155@planchet.rutgers.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 93 03:43:28 GMT
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