Improving the topografiner technology down to nanometer spatial resolution

In Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM) the electrons are confined within the tunneling region, and this limitation has redirected scientists to alternative microscopy techniques, aimed at extracting the electrons away from the tunneling region. The topografiner - strictly speaking a precursor of STM, originally developed at the National Bureau of Standards - is an example. In this paper we report on the latest improvements of the topografiner technology that allow resolving topographic contrast with a lateral resolution down to 7 Å.