Scanning tunneling microscope From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Image of reconstruction on a clean Gold (100) surface An STM image of a single-walled carbon nanotube A scanning tunneling microscope ( STM ) is an instrument for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer (at IBM Zürich), the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. [1] [2] For an STM, good resolution is considered to be 0.1 nm lateral resolution and 0.01 nm depth resolution. [3] With this resolution, individual atoms within materials are routinely imaged and manipulated. The STM can be used not only in ultra-high vacuum but also in air, water, and various other liquid or gas ambients, and at temperatures ranging from near zero kelvin to a few hundred degrees Celsius. [4] The STM is based on the concept of quantum tunneling . When a conducting tip is brought very near to the surface to be examined, a bias