Local Probe Microscopy

The advent of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1982 revolutionized the field of microscopy by introducing the concept of near-field microscopy, which forms the basis of local probe microscopes. Different in principle from traditional microscopes, local probe (or near-field) microscopes have developed from the scientific and technical advances of scanning tunneling microscopy. All of them use a probe tip to scan the surface of a sample, providing images that are very high-resolution maps of specific properties of the sample surface, depending on the type of probe used. Various properties (structural, electronic, chemical, optical, etc.) and their local variations at the nanometric or subnanometric scale can thus be imaged and studied. Thanks to their high resolution, local probe microscopes provide new insights and complement conventional microscopes for studying matter down to the atomic scale.

In the 2020s, after several decades of development, many research laboratories and industries use these observation and analysis instruments. They enable the local properties of surfaces (or interfaces) to be studied under a wide variety of conditions depending on the application: ultra-high vacuum for surface physicochemistry, liquid media for biology and electrochemistry, controlled atmospheres for all kinds of materials and for metrology. The table 1 provides a non-exhaustive list of near-field microscopes that can be used to access the local properties characteristic of a sample.