Abstract
This brief article introduces the July 2004 issue of MRS Bulletin, focusing on Scanning Probe Microscopy in Materials Science. Those application areas of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) in which the most impact has been made in recent years are covered in the articles in this theme.They include polymers and semiconductors, where scanning force microscopy is now virtually a standard characterization method; magnetism, where magnetic force microscopy has served both as a routine analytical approach and a method for fundamental studies; tribology, where friction force microscopy has opened entirely new vistas of investigation; biological materials, where atomic force microscopy in an aqueous environment allows biosystems to be imaged and measured in a native (or near-native) state; and nanostructured materials, where SPM has often been the only approach capable of elucidating nanostructures.
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Additional information
Ernst Meyer, Guest Editor for this issue of MRS Bulletin, is a professor of physics at the University of Basel, Switzerland. His research interests center on the development of surface science techniques such as friction force microscopy and dynamic force microscopy with true atomic resolution. He is also active in the field of sensors based on micromechanics and magnetic spin resonance detection with force microscopy. Meyer received his PhD degree at the University of Basel in 1990; his thesis topic was force microscopy on ionic crystals and layered materials. He worked at the IBM Research Center Zurich from 1992 to 1994. In 1997, he joined the faculty at the University of Basel.
Meyer can be reached at the University of Basel, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, CH- 4056 Basel, Switzerland; tel. 41-61-267-3724, fax 41-61-267-3795, and e-mail ernst.meyer@ unibas.ch.
Suzanne P. Jarvis, Guest Editor for this issue of MRS Bulletin, is a Science Foundation Ireland Principal Investigator at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Her research is focused on the use of atomic force microscopy techniques to investigate nanometer-scale functionality in organic and biological molecules. One of her major goals is to make a conceptual advance in understanding the role of water in biological function.
Jarvis graduated from the University of Oxford with a BA degree in physics and a Kodaksponsored DPhil degree in materials. This was followed by postdoctoral fellowships in Japan at the Joint Research Center for Atom Technology, Tsukuba, before she moved on to a permanent post at the Nanotechnology Research Institute, also in Tsukuba. She is a cofounder of the International Nanotribology Forum and has a number of international collaborations supported by FOM; ETH; the Australian Department of Education, Science, and Technology; and the Human Frontier Science Program. Jarvis has made invited contributions to Nanosurface Chemistry and the Encyclopedia of Chemical Physics and Physical Chemistry.
Jarvis can be reached at Trinity College, SFI Physics Dept., Dublin 2, Ireland; tel. 353-1-608- 3026, fax 353-1-608-3027, e-mail suzi.jarvis@tcd.ie, and URL www.nanofunction.org.
Nicholas D. Spencer, Guest Editor for this issue of MRS Bulletin, has been a professor of surface science and technology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) since 1993; for the past two years, he has been chair of the Department of Materials, a post he also held from 1996 to 1998. The principal areas of his research are tribology, biocompatibility, and surface modification and analysis. Atomic force microscopy and the surface forces apparatus play important roles in his group, as well as imaging versions of more traditional surface analytical methods, such as x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy. Recent projects include the preparation of chemical gradients, biomimetic lubrication, and high-throughput methods of materials evaluation.
Spencer studied at Cambridge University, obtaining his PhD degree in 1980 from the Department of Physical Chemistry in the area of gold and silver surface chemistry. Subsequently, he spent two years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he investigated ammonia synthesis on iron single crystals. From 1982 until 1993, he worked for W.R. Grace & Co. in the areas of catalysis, hightemperature superconductors, surface analysis, and vibrational spectroscopy. He was also active as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland during this time.
He is editor in chief of Tribology Letters, co-editor of IOP’s Chemical Physicsseries, a member of the editorial boards of Tribology International and Lubrication Science, and co-founder of the International Nanotribology Forum.
Spencer can be reached at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology, Dept. of Materials, Zurich, Switzerland; tel. 41-1-632-5850, fax 41-1-633-1027, and e-mail nicholas.spencer@ mat.ethz.ch.
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Meyer, E., Jarvis, S.P. & Spencer, N.D. Scanning Probe Microscopy in Materials Science. MRS Bulletin 29, 443–448 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs2004.137
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs2004.137