Microsc. Microanal. Microstruct. 5, 237-246 (1994)
DOI: 10.1051/mmm:0199400504-6023700

The nanometer age: Challenge and chance

Heinrich Rohrer

IBM Research Division, Zurich Research Laboratory, CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland

Abstract
The new players in the emerging nano-world are individual, selected objects of the size of some 50 nm down to molecules and atoms. The new aspect of science and technology on the nanometer scale is that these objects are treated as individuals, not as ensemble members. To a great extent, this requires real space methods. Local probe methods, such as scanning tunneling microscopy and its derivates, are therefore a key to the nano-world. Major challenges of the new nanometer world are to exploit the new possibilities that arise from nanometer dimensions, to interface the macroscopic world to nano-individuals, to establish new concepts for working with very large numbers of nano-individuals and large sets of control parameters, to create the basis for broad interdisciplinarity, and to prepare society for the tremendous changes anticipated in a nanometer world.

PACS
8107 - Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization.
0779C - Scanning tunneling microscopes.

Key words
Electron microscopy -- Lithography -- Electron beams -- Ion beams -- Ion microscopy -- STM -- Scanning probe microscopy -- Metrology -- Physics


© EDP Sciences 1994