Friday, August 11, 2006

Recently, Chicago hosted its annual Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006. Millions of dollars worth of electron microscopes, scanning tunnel microscopes and some regular optical microscopes were introduced at the show. The talk of the town was an ion beam and scanning electron microscope. The uniqueness of the devise consists of not only allowing the viewer to see the tiniest objects but to pick them up and move them around. Similar microscopes have been around for a few years now and are essential to science of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is a branch of science and engineering devoted to the design and production of extremely small electronic devices and circuits built from individual atoms and molecules.