Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#1

Post by MichaelAO » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 4:43 AM UTC

Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics
dberard.com

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#2

Post by tsomctl » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 7:09 AM UTC

On a related note, Ben Krasnow built a SEM in his garage. Search YouTube for his channel.

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#3

Post by fpordeig » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 8:36 AM UTC

tsomctl wrote: post #2

On a related note, Ben Krasnow built a SEM in his garage. Search YouTube for his channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdjYVF4a6iU

Ben Karsnow's channel is really inspiring. With every video, he pushes the limits of what I thought it was possible to do in your garage.

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#4

Post by fpordeig » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 8:45 AM UTC

Knowing nothing about Electron Microscopes, I found the design of the motion mechanism very clever: http://web.archive.org/web/20130927064954/http://www.geociti...

http://dberard.com/home-built-stm/scan-head/

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#5

Post by cxseven » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 9:00 AM UTC

I'm looking forward to something like this rescuing a few harddrive platters.

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#6

Post by femto » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 10:10 AM UTC

fpordeig wrote: post #4

Knowing nothing about Electron Microscopes, I found the design of the motion mechanism very clever: http://web.archive.org/web/20130927064954/http://www.geociti... http://dberard.com/home-built-stm/scan-head/

Also of interest is that the inventor, John Alexander, submitted a patent application (US5866902), then withdrew the application. Perhaps this was done to establish prior art in the USPTO's database, and prevent someone else from patenting it?

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#7

Post by Osmium » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 10:28 AM UTC

Nice to know they're not magic after all :) Very inspiring.

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#8

Post by aswanson » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 11:12 AM UTC

Nice project. Had no idea the electronics were so simple.

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#9

Post by irremediable » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 6:01 PM UTC

Wow. Stuff like this makes me want to get off my ass and do something cool. Really reinvigorates my passion for hands-on science and engineering, as opposed to the maths and code that I usually look at.

Re: Home Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope Electronics

#10

Post by aaggarwal » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 8:07 PM UTC

This is super cool. Bookmarked. It would be awesome to see it working. I wonder if there is a video on this.

This project uses PI control in the feedback loop. I am curious if the author also tried PID control, that would have been faster with correct tuning.