“Oh yes, oh yes, these are the atoms!” A Personal Recollection from the Times of the Invention of the STM

Abstract

The scanning tunneling microscope, invented and developed in the 1980s in the IBM research laboratory in Rüschlikon, has become the dominent scientific tool in surface science and together with its younger brother the atomic force microscope, is widely used also in many other modern research areas. This account contains very personal anecdotal memories from a colleague who worked in a neighboring lab in Rüschlikon describing some events at the periphery of the development of this ingenious instrument.