NIST’s New Scanning Probe Microscope is Supercool - Microscopy-News.com

URL

http://www.microscopy-news.com/news/nist-s-new-scanning-probe-microscope-is-supercool.html

Description

The discoveries of superconductivity, the quantum Hall effect and the fractional quantum Hall effect were all the result of measurements made at increasingly lower temperatures. Now, pushing the regime of the very cold into the very small, a research team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Maryland, Janis Research Company, Inc., and Seoul National University, has designed and built the most advanced ultra-low temperature scanning probe microscope (ULTSPM) in the world.

Detailed in a recent paper,* the ULTSPM operates at lower temperatures and higher magnetic fields than any other similar microscope, capabilities that enable the device to resolve energy levels separated by as small as 1 millionth of an electron volt. This extraordinary resolution has already resulted in the discovery of new physics (see "Puzzling New Physics from Graphene Quartet's Quantum Harmonies").

The ULTSPM lab rests on a separate 110-ton concrete slab (1), supporte