A High-Performance Microscope Dangling From Bungee Cords

To produce images of individual atoms, a microscope shouldn't shake. A patented vibration damping system developed at the TU Wien enables images of the highest quality. It is one of the most accurate measurement instruments available today: the high-performance microscope at the Institute of Applied Physics of TU Wien acquires images of individual atoms by moving the tip of a fine needle tip across a surface. The position of this tip must be controlled with a precision in the range of picometers, i.e., billionths of a millimeter. "This is akin to controlling a needle with the length of the entire diameter of the Earth to a precision of one millimeter," explains Prof. Michael Schmid from the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Wien. Any kind of vibration makes the microscope unusable, so getting the best performance out of such an instrument is a serious technical challenge. At TU Wien, this was achieved with a special setup that dampens vibrations to a very low level; even vibrations with a very low frequency, which are the most difficult to control.