Better Microscope Probes

A University of Illinois teams’ simple advancement to microscope probe quality could dramatically improve imaging in fields ranging from nanotechnology to cellular biology. Scanning probe microscopes provide images of atomic scale structures but cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet the quality of data these costly devices produce ultimately depends on the probe. Most probes tend to wear down rapidly with use, loosing resolution and requiring researchers stop to replace the tip before proceeding. “To put it in perspective, if you had an expensive racecar but you put bicycle tires on it, it wouldn’t be a very good car,” said Joseph Lyding, University of Illinois professor and lead developer of the probe-sharpening technique that solves this problem. The new technique (described here) produces probes that are sharp, hard, and electrically conductive. As Lyding states, “You can find one or the other but not all three. There’s a tremendous demand for that.”