He wanted to be among the first to refine the techniques for viewing atoms by using scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs).

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The transistor itself is composed of a single phosphorous-31 isotope, which has been precisely placed on a base of silicon using a Scanning Tunneling Microscope in an ultra-high vacuum chamber.

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Nanometer-size materials occur all around us in nature, but it was only 20 years ago, thanks to IBM's introduction of the scanning tunneling microscope, that scientists began to observe and manipulate materials at the atomic level.

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