Suspension system for high-performance microscopy results in perfect images

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...