Scanning tunneling microscopy: a natural for electrochemistry

The basic principles of scanning tunneling microscopy are simple.In means, that electron tunneling can also occur in electrolytes.The tunneling current is the function of the gap between the tip and the surface.The feedback system applies voltage pulses to the Z part to keep the tunneling current constant.Electrolytes, though ionic conductors, are insulators as far as electron flow is concerned.The whole system is controlled with a special computer program.STM is capable of giving images that appear to be simply topographs of surfaces.There has been a tendency to simplification of STMs since the time of their initial development.The first one is vibration isolation.The second point is STM’s ability to aquire images rapidly.