Ming the Mechanic:
Build Your Own Scanning Tunneling Microscope
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 Build Your Own Scanning Tunneling Microscope2004-01-04 11:05
7 comments
picture by Flemming Funch

A group at University of Münster in Germany are giving away the complete DIY plans for building your own Scanning Tunneling Microscope. That would be a key piece if you plan on experimenting with nanotech in your garage. The interesting part is that this is open source technology. Here's part of their license:
We grant everybody the right to construct the microscope using the here-published design for private or educational purposes. On these web pages all necessary diagrams, drawings, material descriptions and software-source-codes are published for free access. While granting the right to build the microscope we make it mandatory that new developments, improvements or other applications of our design are also made openly available for private or educational purposes.



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7 comments

5 Jan 2004 @ 05:28 by taranga @217.158.116.50 : DIY tunneling microscope
Brilliant - how about a few other designs? After all even patented designs can be freely copied for non-commercial purposes - and then any improvements [or work arounds the original patent] can be put in the public domain - though the original will still be protected.

It should also be sub-linked to "copyright-free sharing" in your information category.  

23 Jan 2004 @ 21:13 by aira grace p. pagana @202.69.161.97 : microscope?
i want to make my own microscope because it is our project.. can you help me?  

24 Jan 2004 @ 07:28 by ming : Building microscopes
Well, I certainly know nothing about it. But if it was that particular tunneling microscope you want to build it sounds like those folks in Münster would be happy to help.  

9 Feb 2004 @ 12:37 by Mike Anderson @67.50.220.2 : DIY tunneling microscope
curious  

21 Oct 2005 @ 03:21 by Andy @24.196.99.82 : Microscope
I typed "build scanning tunneling microscope" into Google almost as a joke, and here I am. Wow!  

19 Dec 2014 @ 22:13 by Wiliane @190.37.46.169 : FceCffvzDhuzZXvNbZM
GM: The technique (atomic force mcsooicrpy, or AFM) is not optical, so we are not directly seeing anything in the usual way. Rather, a sharp tip is dragged over a surface in a 2D raster, and interaction between the tip and atoms on the surface is recorded as a function of the XY position. The image is a reconstruction from that information. From the description in the making of video, the interaction between the tip and the atoms is simply the contact force between the two, which is dominated by electrostatic repulsion of the electron shells. There are many variations where the tunneling current or some other property is the function.The high resolution of the raster scan can be accomplished with piezoelectric materials.  

23 Dec 2014 @ 13:41 by Renz @190.78.89.115 : LmJuYClkqFgrQaPw
This is probably a very dumb quitoesn. But what are exactly seeing here? Atoms have no outside shell, right? And I assume the nucleus of the atom would be way to small to be seen. Is it whatever wave they're sending in the microscope interacting with the electrons and creating the illusion of a sphere? If so, does this mean we could not use the same technique with atoms with a small number of electrons? (say lithium for example)  

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