在本刊2009年11期《粒子的“穿墙术”》一文中我们已经介绍了扫描隧道显微镜的工作原理。这种显微镜利用隧道电流来工作。但它有一个缺点,那就是只能用于观察导体和半导体材料,因为要形成电流,材料必须导电才行。而对于那些不导电的绝缘体材料,比如某些高分子有机物,那该怎么办呢?科学家为此发明了另一种超级显微镜——原子力显微镜。 In our article, Issue 11, “Particle Walls”, we describe the working principle of a scanning tunneling microscope. This microscope uses tunneling current to work. But it has the disadvantage that it can only be used to observe the conductor and the semiconductor material, because the material must be conductive to form a current. And for those non-conductive insulator materials, such as certain high-molecular-weight organic matter, what to do? Scientists invented another super-microscope - atomic force microscope.