The frontiers of microscopy

There have been remarkable developments in microscope technology in recent years, driven in part by the nanotechnology revolution and the need to investigate ever smaller and more complex objects with higher resolution. We now not only need to know where the atoms are and what they are, but also how they interact with one another at the atomic scale. Microscopy is a large and growing area, and here we focus our discussion on two main areas that have advanced greatly in recent years: scanning probe microscopy and electron microscopy.