Gerd Binnig (born July 20, 1947) is a German-born physicist who shared with Heinrich Rohrer half of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics for their invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Ernst Ruska won the other half of the prize. July 20 is the 201st day (202nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 164 days remaining. ... 1947 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The word physicist should not be confused with physician, which means medical doctor. ... Heinrich Rohrer (born 1933) is a Swiss physicist who, with Gerd Binnig, received half of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). ... 1986 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... List of Nobel Prize laureates in Physics from 1901 to the present day. ... Image of substitutional Cr impurities (small bumps) in the Fe(001) surface. ... Ernst August Friedrich Ruska (December 25, 1906–May 25, 1988) was a German physicist. ...

Binnig graduated from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and received a doctorate from the University of Frankfurt in 1978. He then joined the IBM Research Laboratory in Zurich, where he and Rohrer designed and built the first scanning tunneling microscope. This instrument produces images of the surfaces of conducting or semiconducting materials in such fine detail that individual atoms can be clearly identified. The Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main (commonly called the University of Frankfurt) was founded in 1914 as a Citizens University, which means that while it was a State university of Prussia, it had been founded and financed by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt am...   Frankfurt am Main? [ˈfraÅ‹kfÊŠrt] is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany. ... 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... IBM Research is part of IBM and has eight locations throughout the world. ... General view showing Grossmünster church. ... A semiconductor is a material with an electrical conductance that is intermediate to those of an insulator and a conductor. ... Properties For alternative meanings see atom (disambiguation). ...

Quantum mechanical effects cause an electric current to pass between the extremely fine tip of the STM's tungsten probe and the surface being studied, and the distance between the probe and the surface is kept constant by measuring the current produced and adjusting the probe's height accordingly. By recording the varying elevations of the probe, a topographical map of the surface is obtained on which the contour intervals are so small that individual atoms are clearly recognizable. The tip of the STM's probe is only about one angstrom wide (100 picometers, or about the width of an atom), and the distance between it and the surface being studied is only about 5 to 10 angstroms (0.5 nm to 1.0 nm). Fig. ... General Name, Symbol, Number Tungsten, W, 74 Chemical series Transition metals Group, Period, Block 6 (VIB), 6, d Density, Hardness 19250 kg/m3, 7. ... An angstrom or ångström (Å) is a non-SI unit of length equal to 10−10 metres, 0. ... A nanometre (American spelling: nanometer, symbol: nm) is 1. ...

In 1984 Binnig joined the IBM Physics Group in Munich. In 1989 he published the book Aus dem Nichts (Out of Nothing), which posited that creativity grows from disorder. Munich: Frauenkirche and Town Hall steeple Munich (German: München (pronounced listen) is the state capital of the German Bundesland of Bavaria. ... 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Reference

• This article incorporates material from [1], available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.