Dissertation Research: Scanning Probe Microscopy: The Genesis and Development of Laboratory Artifacts and Practices

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

In the twenty years since researchers at IBM Zurich introduced the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to the world, scanning probe microscopy (SPM) has become one of the most valuable tools available to physicists, chemists, electrical engineers, materials scientists, biologists, and others seeking to understand the nanoscale features of surfaces. The rich history of SPMs, rooted in the technologies of postwar surface science, has become steadily more diverse as an alphabet soup of instruments and techniques, beginning with the atomic force microscope (AFM) and the scanning capacitance microscope (SCaM), has arisen for measuring and picturing a wide variety of material properties at very high resolution. This dissertation research project seeks to record the history of the development of these laboratory artifacts, and the practices surrounding them, as well as to contribute an ethnographic understanding of how SPMs are used in the ordinary conduct of laboratory life. The project therefore has two parts: an historical component, involving documentary research and interviews with most of the principals in the development of SPMs; and an ethnographic component, involving participant-observation with groups of materials scientists who currently use various SPMs. Each component will shed light on, and raise questions for, the other.