The Microscopy Society of America (MSA) has a number of awards to honor achievements in microscopy. The series of Distinguished Scientist Awards and Burton Medal Awards began in 1975. For Distinguished Scientists, awards are made to individuals in both biological sciences and physical sciences who have had a long-standing career in microscopy or microanalysis. The Burton Medal recognizes scientists under the age of 40. Taken together there have been 117 awardees in these three categories.

The rocky intertidal zone is an extreme environment with high, variable forces from crashing waves and strong ocean currents. A family of fishes, including the northern clingfish (Gobiesox maeandricus), has evolved an adhesive disc that allows them to adhere to rocks in the intertidal zone and even launch predatory attacks on molluscs that are attached to the rocks (Figure 1). Dylan Wainwright, Thomas Kleinteich, Anja Kleinteich, Stanislav Gorb, and Adam Summers studied the morphology of this fish disc to understand the properties of a reversibly adhesive disc that has a strong tenacity to stick to irregular, slippery, and wet surfaces.

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been recognized since the mid-eighties as an excellent technique to image a wide range of samples in their near-natural environment. Although the primary function of AFM is to generate three-dimensional (3D) profiles of the scanned surface, much more information can be delivered via this technique. In 1993, TappingMode was developed, which prevents tip and sample damage due to friction and shear forces and allows qualitative mechanical property mapping through phase imaging. About the same time, force spectroscopy and force volume (FV) were developed to study tip-sample forces at a point or over an area, respectively. To date, force spectroscopy and FV are the most commonly used AFM modes for measuring nanometer-scale mechanical forces in a quantitative manner. Unfortunately, force spectroscopy and FV suffer from slow acquisition speed and a lack of automated tools; these operating characteristics limit their use because of the hundreds or thousands of curves that are required for good statistics.

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been widely used in both industry and academia for imaging the surface topography of a material with nanoscale resolution. However, often little other information is obtained. Contact resonance AFM (CR-AFM) is a technique that can provide information about the viscoelastic properties of a material in contact with an AFM probe by measuring the contact stiffness between the probe and sample. In CR-AFM, an AFM cantilever is oscillated, and the amplitude and frequency of the resonance modes of the cantilever are monitored. When a probe or sample is oscillated, the tip sample interaction can be approximated as an ideal spring-dashpot system using the Voigt-Kelvin model shown in Figure 1. Contact resonance frequencies of the AFM cantilever will shift depending on the contact stiffness, k, between the tip and sample. The damping effect on the system comes from dissipative tip sample forces such as viscosity and adhesion. Damping, η, is observed in a CR-AFM system by monitoring the amplitude and Q factor of the resonant modes of the cantilever. This contact stiffness and damping information can then be used to obtain information about the viscoelastic properties of the material when fit to an applicable model.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and ion beam milling techniques are mature nanoscale measurement technologies, whereas atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a developing technology generating intense interest in the scientific community for basic research and development. These techniques have generally existed in separate worlds. This article discusses a capability that marries these technologies through an instrument recently introduced by Nanonics, the 3TB4000.

Recently, a highly sensitive imaging mode for, complex, calibrated electrical and spatial measurements was made available to atomic force microscope (AFM) users. Scanning microwave microscopy (SMM), an award-winning AFM mode of operation developed by Agilent Technologies, combines the comprehensive electrical measurement capabilities of a microwave vector network analyzer (VNA) with the nanoscale spatial resolution of an AFM.

Image restoration aims to make optimal use of the data provided by the light microscope to recover the object being imaged; in other words, to “figure out what the microscope is actually trying to tell us.” To achieve this, the distortions introduced by the imaging process need to be undone insofar possible.

Born in Ireland on August 13, 1819, George Stokes was the youngest of six children. His father, a rector, directed his early education before sending him to a school in Dublin. Stokes attended Bristol College in England, followed by Pembroke College at Cambridge University, where he studied mathematics. He graduated in 1841 and was bestowed with many honors, including a fellowship that enabled him to remain at Cambridge. In 1849, Stokes was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and spent the rest of his life working at the prestigious school.

Selected postings from the Microscopy Listserver from July 1, 2013 to September 1, 2013. Complete listings and subscription information can be obtained at http://www.microscopy.com. Postings may have been edited to conserve space or for clarity.

Following is a list of microscopy related meetings and courses. The editors would greatly appreciate input to this list via the electronic submission form under “events/other microscopy events” at the MSA webpage: www.microscopy.org. We will gladly add hypertext links to the notice on the web and insert a listing of the meeting in the next issue.

I am having trouble with my light microscopes. I keep seeing double even when I correctly adjust the interpupillary distance and dioptric parameters. Is it me, or could something serious be wrong with the scope?

For a beam-sensitive specimen, the spatial resolution of TEM analysis is limited by radiation damage, and it is obviously a good thing to minimize the amount of damage that occurs during a measurement. Knock-on displacement damage, which predominates in metals, can be reduced by lowering the accelerating voltage (ideally below a threshold value that depends on atomic weight and displacement energy). Ionization damage (radiolysis), which predominates in organic materials, is often ameliorated if the specimen is cooled below room temperature.