This closeup of a Nanosurf STM. Notice the tip up against the gold surface.
This image was taken of a Nanosurf STM, used by a high school researcher from Saint Joseph’s High School. Having spent no small amount of time learning to use the instrument, this student is searching for large-scale deformities in octane thiol (8-SH) monolayers on a gold surface (on a scale, say, of 50 nanometers, some 100 times larger than the internuclear distance for carbon atoms). Samples are exposed to hexane for various amounts of time, and the impacts of that exposure on the 8-SH surface. NDeRC Fellow Annette Raigoza shared some of her experience working with this project here and surrounding posts.