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Fig. 1.13 Structure of the
platinum single-crystal
surface (a) and annealed
decanethiol film (b)ona
golden substrate recorded
on a scanning electron
microscope
The possibilities of reorganizing atomic and molecular surface structures are not
limited to spatial rearrangements. The influence of the spectrometer's needle can
lead to the dissociation of molecules into atoms or molecular fragments.
The scanning tunneling microscopy plays an important role in the studies of the
surface structure of solids. But at the same time, it has a major shortcoming—the
objects of investigation can only be materials that conduct electric current. There-
fore, only a few years after the invention of the tunneling microscope, in 1985,
IBM's Binnig and Gerber in Zurich and Quate, professor at the Stanford University
in California, developed an atomic resolution scanning microscope that allows to
study nonconducting objects. In this microscope, the image is created due to the
interaction of the needle tip with the surface atoms of the investigated sample.
However, the quantum effect of the interaction between atoms at short distances
used in this case, the so-called dispersion force, differs from tunneling. This
